Mauricio Pochettino has been in charge of Chelsea for a week and will have started to formulate the size of his task moving forwards. Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley detailed the club's plan in their meetings in advance of the former Spurs boss taking charge in west London but after a number of days on the training pitch, working with this coaching staff, Chelsea's path and the plan ahead of the new season will become clearer to the 51-year-old head coach.
Chelsea's focus this summer has been on reducing the number of players in their squad, and they have been successful in doing so following a situation that led to difficulty managing training sessions, changes to the changing room and disillusioned players. Kalidou Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy, Kai Havertz, Mateo Kovacic, Mason Mount and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have all been sold already this summer.
The work that has already taken place has been a continuation of a club in transition, with the Blues having spent in excess of £600million in the first 12 months of Todd Boehly's and Clearlake Capital's ownership. Before the club's lavish January spending that saw the arrival of the likes of Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and Noni Madueke, Raheem Sterling was the statement signature 12 months ago.
The former Liverpool and Manchester City star joined for £45million and was crucial to Thomas Tuchel's plans. The 28-year-old was to be the key part of Chelsea's attack, as the German coach looked to overcome Chelsea's struggles to create chances and at that stage had little interest in signing a striker.
Ultimately, the Blues only managed 38 goals in the Premier League, and have already added to their firepower this summer with Christopher Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson. However, after a summer of rest having taken the decision with Gareth Southgate to not participate in England's international matches, Stering is already in Chelsea training and will plan to have a more impactful season.
Pochettino, believes there are reasons Sterling and others did not hit the ground running and that reducing the size of the squad will play a key role in the winger finding his place at Chelsea. Sterling will need to, standing out as a veteran in comparison to the youthful structure that has been put in place in the last year. Pochettino also expects his charge to take responsibility to improve too.
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He said: “We are talking about a really good player, but sometimes it’s not easy for a player to adapt quickly and show the same performance that he maybe had at the other club. We need to reduce the number of people in the squad because it was so big. People need to find their space in the training ground, then in training, then in the team.
“We can’t just blame the players. We need to see what is going on and why they are not performing in the way we expect. When all is clear, we cannot give excuses to them not to perform. We need to clean everything and say: ‘Come on – now it’s up to you, show me that you are ready to play for this club’.”
More will be expected from the Mudryk and Madueke too. Frank Lampard reflected how difficult it was for incoming stars in January on occasion and it is something Chelsea's new boss appears to agree with.
Pochettino hopes to provide an environment where his players can kickstart their Premier League careers.
"Now is a new start," he said. “They need to show their real quality. But we need to create a platform for them to feel comfortable and to create the space for them to perform and improve. These players were arriving in difficult circumstances and it’s a great challenge for us, because we love to work in this way. We need to give them the opportunity to show they are able to cope with pressure to play for Chelsea.
“It’s not only responsibility of [the coach] always to feel [the mood] with everyone. The player has responsibility to try to adapt and have his own motivation and try to work really hard and let us to manage to try to achieve the very best.”
