Mauricio Pochettino will prioritise the signing of a goalkeeper in the summer transfer window once he is finally in place as the new Chelsea manager.
Pochettino will be announced as the next Blues boss this week after reaching an agreement with the club’s co-owners, Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali. The protracted talks, which will see him take over from Frank Lampard at the end of the season, have given the former Tottenham manager plenty of time to consider his next steps once he is through the door at Cobham.
The obvious first step is to oversee a complete overhaul of the squad, with the club having stockpiled a vast number of players. Pochettino is known to favour working with a small, tight-knit squad, with his best season at Spurs coming with a 24-man roster.
Many fringe players are expected to leave but Pochettino is also open to one of Kepa Arrizabalaga and Edouard Mendy leaving. Mirror Football understands that the Argentine is unconvinced with Chelsea’s goalkeepers and wants to sign a new one this summer.
Pochettino’s previous work, at Tottenham and Southampton in particular, has been focused on young players. And while many of Chelsea’s problems this season have come in attack, he wants to establish a solid and settled defence from which to build from.
The 51-year-old is a fan of young centre-backs Benoit Badiashile and Levi Colwill and the more established full-back duo of Reece James and Ben Chilwell. He also wants to hold onto N’Golo Kante, whose current contract is set to expire at the end of June and has been eyed by Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
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Chelsea have spent over £600million in the two transfer windows since Boehly and Eghbali bought the club from Roman Abramovich a year ago, but they are committed to backing Pochettino this summer. With Financial Fair Play providing an obvious barrier to more expenditure, they recognise that selling unwanted stars is a key consideration.
"You know they want to win and we get that we want to win so you know I think our view though was that this is a long-term project and you know we're committed to the long-term," Boehly said last week.
"We very much believe that we're going to figure it out. We've got the best league in the world, we've got what I think is the top city in the world and we've got an unbelievable location in the top city in the world."
Although he would like a new goalkeeper, finding a world-class centre-forward will likely dominate the headlines this summer. Chelsea find themselves 11th in the Premier League this season, having scored just 34 goals in 34 games.
Kai Havertz is the top-scorer with nine goals in all competitions, while Raheem Sterling has seven. Atletico Madrid loanee Joao Felix and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who was signed from Barcelona, have failed to change the club’s fortunes in front of goal and are likely to depart at the end of the season.
