Which Chelsea Managers Had Better Records than Pochettino?

When Chelsea parted company with Mauricio Pochettino at the end of the 2023/24 season, some fans and pundits were surprised. After all, the Argentine had seemed to have turned things around at Stamford Bridge and his side finished strongly in the Premier League to finish in sixth position. Okay, they still missed out on the Champions League which is unlikely to appease the Chelsea board, but it’s a whole lot better than the 12th-place finish from the season before.

Of course, when we look at the actual statistics, it should come as no great surprise that Pochettino left the club. Although he wasn’t at the club for long (less than a year!), he didn’t win anything with the Blues. His win percentage was not all that impressive at just 50.98%. As we shall see in this article, there are plenty of Blues managers, both recent and in decades gone by, that have been better for Chelsea than Pochettino.

Which Chelsea Managers Won More Major Trophies than Pochettino?

Given that Pochettino didn’t win any trophies at Chelsea, it makes it easy to spot the Blues bosses who’ve done better than him on that metric. We’re only counting major trophies here (so we’re not including things like lower division titles, the Community Shield or the Full Members Cup).

Which Chelsea Managers Has Better Win Percentages Than Pochettino?

As mentioned earlier, Pochettino’s win percentage while in charge of Chelsea was 50.98%. This compares the 54.27% win rate he achieved at Tottenham and the whopping 65.48% he posted while in charge of Paris Saint-Germain. But which Blues bosses achieved a better win percentage? Well, plenty, as you can see below.

So, not excluding caretaker bosses who were only in charge for for handful of games (although Hiddink was technically classified as an “interim” manager), there were 16 Chelsea managers who achieved better win percentages than Pochettino. Eight men posted win percentages that were at least 10 points higher than that achieved by the Argentine. Two of those were way back at the beginning of the 20th century, but the other six were in relatively recent times.

Were Chelsea Right to Get Rid of Pochettino?

Although the Argentine boss reportedly left Chelsea “by mutual consent”, if the club had really wanted him to stay, they could surely have persuaded him to stick around. But was it the right decision for the club to part ways? If we look at the upturn in results towards the end of the Premier League season, it certainly suggests Pochettino had his team moving in the right direction. The Blues lost only one league match in their last 15, and that was away to Arsenal, who pushed Man City very close in the race for the title. Indeed, the Blues won their final five league games, something they hadn’t managed since their title-winning campaign of 2016/17.

The flip side, however, is that Pochettino was (reportedly) simply not happy at the club so keeping him there would almost certainly have ended badly at some point. As such, he – and the club – probably thought it made sense for him to go out on a (relative) high after a strong finish to the season, thus keeping his reputation intact and clearing the decks for Chelsea to start afresh… again. Whether the next man to take the Chelsea job is given the time to achieve much remains to be seen. But, on balance, Pochettino’s time at Stamford was not a great success compared to many who came before him and it was probably the right time for him to move on to pastures new.