WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS
When a manager and a football club part company by “mutual consent”, it invariably transpires that the consent in question was far more mutual on the part of the club’s owners than that of the manager who is wandering around the training ground with a cardboard box full of vibe-enhancing lemons under his arm, saying farewell to assorted former colleagues. This certainly seems to have been the case at Chelsea, where senior suits and Mauricio Pochettino emerged from their end-of-season appraisal having arrived at the conclusion it would be best if the Argentinian left after just a year in the job. This, despite him having finally whipped the previously under-performing rabble of overpriced young misfits that had been the source of so much mirth for two-thirds of the campaign into something resembling a decent football team. Not world-beaters, but one that had managed to win their final five games, secure sixth place in the Premier League and the place in Europe next season that goes with it.
