Chelsea have reached an agreement in principle with the representatives of Mauricio Pochettino for the Argentine to be their new coach.
The Blues have been searching for a permanent successor to Graham Potter for the past month and have spoken to a number of candidates.
Co-owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital first spoke to former Barcelona manager Luis Enrique and former Bayern Munich manager Julian Nagelsmann about the role.
However, Chelsea have walked away from Enrique after an initial round of talks, while Nagelsmann withdrew from contention last week.
While Burnley’s Vincent Kompany, Sporting CP’s Ruben Amorim and Napoli’s Luciano Spalletti were admired, Pochettino emerged as Chelsea’s new No. 1 candidate and the two sides have been locked in negotiations in recent days.
An agreement has been reached in principle for Pochettino to take over at Chelsea and now the finer points of the deal are being ironed out.
Talks continue about the composition of his coaching staff, with the Argentine looking to bring his four regular coaches, assistants Jesús Pérez and Miguel D’Agostino, goalkeeping coach Toni Jiménez and his son, sports scientist Sebastiano Pochettino, to the west. From london.
In February, Pochettino turned down an overture from Chelsea in part because Potter was still in the job and at the time was more than a month away from being sacked.
Pochettino has been out of a job since leaving Paris Saint-Germain at the end of last season. He had been interested in a return to the old club Tottenham, but no approach from the north London side ever came, paving the way for rivals Chelsea to swoop in.
