Mourinho second favourite to replace Pochettino at Chelsea as viral video ‘sparks frenzy’

Posted Saturday, April 06, 2024 by football365.com

Jose Mourinho has been linked with a third stint at Chelsea.

Mauricio Pochettino is the fifth Chelsea manager under the ownership of Todd Boehly and Clearlake but who will be the sixth?

It feels as though the writing’s on the wall for the current Blues boss, prompting us to look at the next manager odds, according to Oddschecker.

10) Jurgen Klopp

Sure, he said he’s taking a break and under no circumstances would manage another Premier League team, but if he’s this good with Liverpool’s so-called kids, just imagine what he could do with a genuinely young squad.

9) Rob Edwards

As much as we would love to see the Stamford Bridge glow-up of an already ludicrously handsome man, it’s his Graham Potter-iness that will likely rule him out in Todd Boehly’s mind. It would be one of the biggest steps up in Premier League history.

8) Arne Slot

Led Feyenoord to just their second Eredivisie title this century last season, but they’re currently ten points behind PSV Eindhoven, managed by Peter Bosz, who is thus the Dutch flavour of this season.

7) Xavi Hernandez

Maybe not the best idea to hire the second least successful of ten Barcelona managers (according to PPG) in the last 15 years purely because he was the Barcelona manager.

6) Roberto De Zerbi

Why break the Brighton habit? Well, maybe because it’s proven to be a far from lucrative one thus far. Graham Potter was sacked, Marc Cucurella was the worst signing of 2022, Caicedo was the worst signing of 2023 and Robert Sanchez is currently being kept out of the team by a slightly less mediocre goalkeeper.

He’s managed to remain on the ‘next manager’ lists of Liverpool, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Barcelona as well as Chelsea despite an inauspicious 2023-34 compared to his outstanding debut campaign.

5) Michel Sanchez

His name will be on the lists of top clubs the world over thanks to the remarkable job he’s doing with Girona. The Spanish minnows are now third in La Liga behind Barcelona but were for a good while going toe to toe with Real Madrid, despite their squad costing €33m compared to Madrid’s €573m. Remarkable is right.

4) Thomas Tuchel

Definitely available in the summer, and the reasons for binning him in the first place look increasingly small and tw*tty given Chelsea’s struggles since jettisoning the man who won them a second Champions League title, but any move for the soon-to-be-former Bayern Munich man would require a degree of introspection and humility we’re 99 per cent certain Todd Boehly does not possess.

3) Ruben Amorim

Heavily linked with Spurs pre-Ange and now with Liverpool post-Klopp, it feels inevitable that Amorim will move to one of the Premier League big boys before long. And until that time he will be linked with everything. The one candidate conspicuously backed in on the post-Carabao Monday. You can read into that what you will, but we would advise ‘absolutely nothing probably’.

2) Jose Mourinho

There will be more than a few Chelsea fans thinking a third stint would be a good idea, because a) both the previous two yielded dominant title wins, b) these youngsters need the sort of kicking he would provide and c) who better to bring back Chelsea values than the man who instilled many of them in the first place?

It feels very unlikely though given Todd Boehly and Clearlake’s commitent to do the exact opposite of Roman Abramovich. If they’re willing to consistently lose football matches to remain steadfast in that commitment, they’re not about to hire the manager who embodies the previous regime, no matter how loudly the fans chant his name.

He was sixth on this list before the official Chelsea account posted a video on social media that was no more than an announcement of a new sponsorship arrangement with Three, but sent some very wide-eyed fans into a ‘frenzy’ over Mourinho’s imminent return according to Football.London, which to be fair may well be accurate given they clearly then piled money on him coming back to Stamford Bridge.

1) Hansi Flick

There is no clear overwhelming favourite for a job not yet technically available, but it’s the former Germany boss currently with his nose just in front. He’s also been strongly linked with the definitely available Barcelona job. Won all the necessary pots and pans at Bayern to sufficiently burnish the ol’ CV for any big club job.