CHELSEA have not ruled out Roberto De Zerbi as a potential candidate to replace Mauricio Pochettino on the bench ahead of the next term.
The Blues are looking for a new manager after Pochettino suddenly left Stamford Bridge after just one season in charge, despite leading the club to European qualification.
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Who could be Chelsea’s next manager?
HERE are the seven names in contention to replace Mauricio Pochettino following his shock exit from Chelsea.
Roberto DeZerbi
The Italian left Brighton at the end of the season after a year and a half in charge. He was linked with a number of key roles at the start of the campaign, but a string of difficult results saw him fall out of contention for the likes of Liverpool. De Zerbi’s attacking style would be popular at Stamford Bridge.
Kieran McKenna
The former Manchester United assistant led Ipswich to consecutive promotions from League One to the Premier League. This has caused his stock to skyrocket and he may be tempted to jump ship for a big job.
Enzo Maresca
Maresca was Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City and worked wonders at Leicester, righting the ship to send the Foxes back to the Premier League at the first attempt. Appointing a Pep disciple has turned Arsenal into title contenders, so it could work for Chelsea too.
Hansi movie
Flick was one of the most sought-after coaches in football after winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich. But everything went wrong in his next role, becoming the first coach to be fired by Germany. Now he’s ready to return and could be a smart move for the Blues
Sebastian Honesse
Chelsea fans may not have heard of him, but Hoeness is Germany’s next big thing. Hoeness transformed Stuttgart from relegation candidates into the second best team in the Bundesliga, finishing above Bayern Munich. Only the invincible Bayer Leverkusen got in the way of a miracle.
Michel
Michel Sanchez did wonders with little Girona in Spain. The minnows were right in the race for the LaLiga title at Christmas, before seeing Real Madrid rocket away. But they overtook illustrious Catalan neighbors Barcelona into second place and secured a place in the Champions League. Reports in Spain say this has caught the attention of Chelsea.
Jose Mourinho
Still adored by Stamford Bridge fans who never liked former Spurs manager Pochettino, Mourinho would be a popular choice. Winner of three Premier Leagues with the Blues in two topsy-turvy spells, will he be the man to take Chelsea back to the top?
According to The telegraphWest Londoners have narrowed their search to four candidates.
These include Leicester’s Enzo Maresca, Ipswich’s Kieran McKenna and Brentford’s Thomas Frank.
There has been no confirmation whether De Zerbi, 44, is officially the unnamed fourth coach.
However, the same source claims that the Italian strategist has not yet been eliminated.
Despite this, the former Brighton boss is currently considered an “outlier”.
If Chelsea were to sign De Zerbi, the Seagulls could still receive around £5m in compensation, which is a lot cheaper than the £15m he would have cost had he still been working at the Amex Stadium.
The former Shakhtar Donetsk manager would have to demonstrate that he could work within the Chelsea club structure and cooperate with sporting directors Paul Winstanley as well as Laurence Stewart.
It comes after De Zerbi expressed frustration with Brighton’s model last season, while many in football see him as a challenging character.
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However, there is still no clear favorite to replace Pochettino at the helm.
However, Maresca, McKenna and Frank have internal support at Chelsea.
Director of recruitment and talent Joe Shields worked with Maresca at Manchester City when the Italian was assistant manager to Pep Guardiola, at a time when Cole Palmer was playing under him.
McKenna’s impressive progress at Ipswich has been tracked by the Premier League giants for some time.
And Chelsea’s new set-piece specialist Bernardo Cueva worked closely with Frank at Brentford.
But De Zerbi is well known to global recruitment director Sam Jewell as they worked together at Brighton.
Moises Caicedo also played with him last season, while Mykhailo Mudryk and the Italian coach go back to their time together at Shakhtar.
Chelsea are beyond a laughing stock
By Andy Dillon
CHELSEA’s longest serving manager under the club’s new owners has left by mutual consent.
The fact that Mauricio Pochettino only lasted 325 days underlines how terrible the club has become.
You can expect a coach to lose his job after five games WITHOUT a win, but only Chelsea could lose theirs after five consecutive victories.
When fans wrote an open letter to president Todd Boehly and his teammate Behdad Eghbali in March, they expressed fears that their beloved Chelsea were becoming “a laughingstock on and off the pitch”.
It’s far beyond that now, with the departure of the manager who finally seemed to be listening to a team called ‘£1 billion bottle jobs’ just over two months ago when they slumped to defeat against Liverpool’s youth team in the World Cup final. Carabao Cup. .
Read Andy Dillon’s full opinion on Pochettino’s sacking and what it means here.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
