Mauricio Pochettino is confident he retains the backing of Chelsea’s owners but conceded his future was out of his hands after defeat in the Carabao Cup final increased scrutiny of his position.
Mauricio Pochettino, Chelsea’s manager, is sure that he still has the support of the club’s owners despite their loss to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final.
Pochettino admits that his future at the club isn’t entirely up to him, especially after the defeat to Liverpool led to increased scrutiny of his role.
The Argentine said he had positive chats with Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, the co-owners of the club, after the 1-0 extra-time loss on Sunday.
The loss at Wembley led to even more criticism of Pochettino and his costly team, including harsh words from Gary Neville. They were unable to beat a less experienced team that was missing many of its top players, leading to the Sky Sports pundit to label them ‘bottlers’.
Chelsea, currently sitting in 11th place in the Premier League and closer to the relegation zone than the top four, will play against Championship club Leeds at home in the FA Cup fifth round on Wednesday evening.
“I said hello to the owners when I saw them in the stadium and after (the final) I met Behdad and we were talking,” said Pochettino.
“We were sharing our opinions about the game and the opportunity we missed to win a trophy because I think we played really well during the 90 minutes.”
“We created the best chances, we were not clinical enough but that is what has happened since the beginning of the season.”
“They (the owners) showed their support and after the game, Todd sent a nice message.”
When asked if he would get time to make things better, Pochettino said: “It’s not in my hands. We have a very good relationship with the owners, with the sporting director.”
“It’s up to them to trust or not. It’s not the coach’s decision.”
Sky Sports expert Neville called Chelsea “blue billion pound bottle jobs” after they didn’t win the cup final. Pochettino thinks this isn’t fair but says he listens to what the media and ex-players say.
Pochettino, who is 51, likes how his team is doing as they try to win something this year.
“I think we are all tired because always when you lose a final, it’s not easy to recover,” he shared.
“But I am so happy because they are really focused and they move forward. If you ask all the players if they want to be involved tomorrow in the game, they spoke revenge.
“We’re sad we didn’t win the Carabao Cup but we have to keep going because we have another match tomorrow.”
“It wasn’t hard (to lift the players) because we cannot wait. Now we need to get the spirits up and move on and be ready for tomorrow because it’s another competition where we want to go until the end.”
