Mauricio Pochettino has left Chelsea by mutual consent, the Premier League club said on Tuesday.
Pochettino spent just one season as manager at Stamford Bridge and endured a troubled campaign in which he failed to qualify for the Champions League.
“On behalf of everyone at Chelsea, we would like to express our gratitude to Mauricio for his service this season. He will be back at Stamford Bridge anytime soon and we wish him all the best in his future coaching career,” Chelsea’s sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley said in a statement.
Chelsea finished sixth in the table, lost in the final of the English League Cup and reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
Former Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham manager Pochettino took over last summer after Chelsea’s American owners Todd Bohly and Clearlake Capital sacked Thomas Duchel and Graham Potter in their first year in charge.
Pochettino managed to save the 2023-24 season by securing European football in either the Europa League or the Conference League, another disappointing year for the side who won the Champions League in 2021.
„Thank you to the Chelsea ownership group and sporting directors for the opportunity to be part of the history of this football club,” Pochettino said in Tuesday’s announcement. „The club is now well positioned to continue progressing in the Premier League and Europe in the coming years.”
Under Boehly and Clearlake, Chelsea has spent About $1 billion was spent in transfers, but that didn’t translate into success on the field.
Pochettino was expected to turn Chelsea back into a team capable of challenging for the Premier League title. The west London club won England’s top division five times under former owner Roman Abramovich.
After a difficult start to the season, Chelsea’s form picked up since the turn of the year and the team lost just three league games in 2024, ending the campaign with five straight wins.
Despite those developments, Pochettino’s status remains in doubt.
Amid speculation over his future, the 52-year-old Argentine earlier this month „Won’t Be the End of the World” If he loses his job and points to his own dissatisfaction with his first year at the club.
„If we’re happy, right, but not just if the owners are happy or the sporting director is happy,” he said. „Maybe we’re not happy because we came here with a job, but in the end it didn’t happen, which is what we expected.”
Pochettino won a French title with PSG but left Chelsea unable to complete his quest for a first trophy in English football after previous spells with Southampton and Tottenham.
Pochettino’s training team, which includes Jesus Perez, Miguel D’Agostino, Tony Jimenez and Sebastiano Pochettino, has also left, Chelsea said.
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