Chelsea predictions: Pochettino may not find it easy to find improvements
- Chelsea's points haul last season was their lowest since 1987-88
- The Blues' matches produced a divisional-low average of 2.24 goals per time
- Recommended bet: Chelsea bottom 10 finish
Chelsea could not have endured a worst season than last season which means improvements are expected under Mauricio Pochettino.
Pochettino, the club's fourth manager in under a year, is spending as liberally as some of his predecessors and an impatient board and fed-up fanbase need to see a return on that investment.
Their lowest points haul this century, their lowest goals tally for almost a century, 2022-23 was little short of disastrous for Chelsea.
Thomas Tuchel, remarkably given his previous successes and with Chelsea having started the campaign okay, was sacked after a Champions League loss at Dinamo Zagreb in early September.
Graham Potter arrived with the praise of his peers ringing in his ears and by mid-October they were fourth in the Premier League, but that was as good as it got.
Potter, who had at least got the club into the quarter-finals of the Champions League, was fired in early April with virtually no progress made and Frank Lampard was summoned to preside over the wreckage of the remainder of the season.
If managers are judged by the silverware they accrue then Mauricio Pochettino would never be hailed as a great coach.
Only at Paris Saint-Germain did the Argentinian finally get his hands on a trophy, yet everyone knows you need to read between the lines with Pochettino.
An astute tactician, empathetic listener, grafter and popular on the training ground, Pochettino brought the best out of players at Espanyol, Southampton and Tottenham, especially youngsters, and progress developing Chelsea's youngsters will be worth more than any piece of silverware.
Chelsea being Chelsea just cannot stop buying and selling no matter who the manager and Pochettino has caught the bug.
He was under instruction to clear out a load of big-money, big-earning stars and did just that with the likes of Edouard Mendy, Mateo Kovacic, Mason Mount, Kalidou Koulibaly, N’Golo Kante – the list goes on – all heading out of Stamford Bridge.
That has freed up funds for Pochettino to address the most obvious area of weakness, in attack, with Nicolas Jackson and Christopher Nkunku arriving from Villarreal and RB Leipzig respectively for a combined £90million.
It is still a huge squad, less bloated than before, and may leave Chelsea fans nervous over a necessary stability with so much movement in and out of players.
The weaknesses are the easier issue to address.
The accusation last season – lazy, though not entirely inaccurate – was that Chelsea were so full of showmen, so replete with ball players they just become a soft touch and easy to bully.
Clearly they could not find a centre-forward and too many big-money stars struggled to find their form.
That instability remains a major headache for Pochettino especially as he continues to introduce more bodies.
As for strengths, the Jackson-Nkunku double act is showing signs of promise, while defensively they will be better with Reece James and Ben Chilwell fully fit, though how long 38-year-old Thiago Silva can go on for is anyone's guess.
All the prices suggest the good times are about to return to Stamford Bridge.
Heavily odds-on for a top-six finish suggests that that eventuality is beyond doubt, but the value might be in thinking the other way.
While Chelsea look stronger, so too do Manchester United, Newcastle United, Arsenal and Liverpool, while Manchester City aren't going anywhere.
And we all saw last season how progressive the likes of Aston Villa, Brighton and Brentford have become.
The Pochettino era at Chelsea is work in progress, success will not happen overnight and there is definitely more value in them replicating last season's bottom half finish than taking a silly price on them returning to the elite.
