Chelsea agree terms with ex-Spurs boss to replace Frank Lampard as head coach
Mauricio Pochettino has agreed terms to become the new Chelsea head coach, with the Argentine expected to finalise the details of his deal over the coming days.
Pochettino is expected to bring mostly his own backroom staff into the club, including assistant manager and head of conditioning Jesus Perez, first-team coach Miguel D’Agostino, goalkeeping coach Toni Jimenez and his son Sebastiano, a sports scientist.
The ex-Spurs and PSG head coach will take up the position in the summer, after Frank Lampard has overseen Chelsea’s final three Premier League games.
Lampard was hired as the Blues’ caretaker boss in early April for his second managerial stint at the club, but has won just one of his eight games in charge.
The ex-Argentina international has been out of football since leaving his role with PSG in July 2022 having won the 2021-22 Ligue 1 title and the 2021 Coupe de France.
He originally made his name in the Premier League after joining Southampton from Espanyol in 2013, guiding them to eighth in his first season.
He then took over Spurs a year later, overseeing a Champions League Final loss and four consecutive top-four finishes in his largely successful five-year stint with the club.
He will join a Chelsea side at their lowest ebb in nearly 30 years, without European football and currently on course for a first bottom-half finish in the Premier League since 1995-96.
His first job will be to tame a dysfunctional first-team squad of nearly 40 players, before beginning to shepherd the Blues back toward the lofty heights they have become accustomed to.
He is expected to work alongside Lampard and Chelsea’s sporting and technical directors between now and the end of the season to begin this process.
