Pochettino ‘interviewed Chelsea’ as much as Chelsea interviewed Pochettino — report

Mauricio Pochettino has reportedly agreed to become our next head coach, drawing to a close a six-week-long managerial hunt, wherein our intention was to conduct a thorough and exhaustive search, but seemed to zero in on Pochettino quite quickly — especially after Julian Nagelsmann dropped out.

That it still took several weeks to arrive at this supposed agreement seems to have had less to do with anything on our end, and more to do with satisfying Pochettino’s concerns, which, given Chelsea’s last twelve months, were surely numerous.

In fact, according to CBS’s Ben Jacobs, Pochettino already had reservations about the job after knocking back our approach in the wake of Tuchel’s sacking in September. So the interview process was more of a two-way affair, but evidently we managed to make our case convincingly and confidently enough. (Unlike the seven other teams who had made offers in prior months, according to the Mirror.)

Pochettino’s main concerns are said to involve signing a proper striker, ensuring that the summer clearout does clear out those who need to be cleared out, and that we don’t clear out Mason Mount. Hopefully we come through as imagined indeed.