The Athletic.

On Tuesday, Marizio Pocitino left his position as Chelsea head coach by mutual consent after

less than 11 months in the job.

After a poor start, he led his side to a sixth place finish in the Premier League,

but the upturn in form wasn't enough.

So why did the Pochitino project fail and who will Chelsea turn to next?

I'm Adam Leventhal. Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast.

With us today, we have the Athletics Chelsea writer Simon Johnson and Jack Pitt

Brooke, who followed Pochitino's reign at Spurs. Very, very closely indeed.

Well, let's start with you, Simon. Many people outside of Chelsea will have been really surprised by this decision, considering the uptick in form, five wins to end the campaign, European football guaranteed. But what was your

reaction? I wasn't surprised, Adam. And in a way, I'm quite surprised people are surprised. Because from

the man himself, Richard Poitino, he dropped a number of hints for months, really, but particularly in the last six

weeks about how he was feeling. He was starting to say some very outspoken things, having little

digs at the organisation, straight sporting directors. He had many opportunities to say that he was staying for sure,

but would often say it's not my decision, it's their decision. When I asked him quite recently

after Todd Bowley's comments at the Sportico conference about how Todd seemed to be quite positive

and he'd also admitted early in the press conference

about that he'd started work on preseason. I asked him a very positive question, you know,

is this a good sign that you're going to be staying? And he decided to go voluntarily down

a completely different route and saying, well, it's not just about the

club being happy, we have to be happy. And if there is a split, it is not the end of the world.

I mean, this is extraordinary stuff. He then rained back on those comments over the weekend,

...