What will be Mauricio Pochettino's key priorities as new Chelsea head coach?

Right, let's now focus on the big story we brought you over the weekend. Chelsea have now agreed a deal with Maurizio Pochettino to become their new manager. We're joined in the studio by our reporter Paul Gilmore and David Webb who worked alongside Pochettino at Tottenham as the club's head of elite identification and development. Welcome to you both. Good to see you, David. Paul, I'm going to start with you, I guess, because we're heading towards confirmation. We haven't quite got it yet, so where are we? Yeah, I think the confirmation is a formality. Vicky, Maurizio Pochettino will be the next Chelsea manager. An agreement is in place between he and Chelsea. He's in Barcelona at the moment. He'll be flying back to the UK to formalise that this week. He does all his own things as well, doesn't he? He works as his own agent, is that right? He does everything himself. He works closely with his team, his trusted backroom team, of course, as well. He's worked with, for so many years, the likes of Jesus Perez and, of course, lawyers involved as well as they would be in any sort of deal. They certainly discuss things like that as part of a trusted team. It was no different here to what it was at Southampton, to what it was at PSG, to what it was at Tottenham. But he is expected to sign a three-year contract at Stamford Bridge and he'll bring those staff in. We do know, of course, Frank Lampard will be in charge of the Chelsea team until the end of the season, not long to go, and Maurizio Pochettino will be ready to come in for pre-season and Chelsea players, the ones who remain, will be ready to work hard because I'm sure David will be able to give us more insights into his methods but he is somebody who will have them ready for the new season, shall we say. He's got a job on his hands. We'll come to that in just a minute. But is this a good fit, do you feel, Chelsea? Yeah, I do. I think he's not only a world-class coach but I think he's a good man-manager. He likes to work with young players. He likes to work with top-hungry young players at Moldham and Chelsea have obviously spent heavily in that area. So it's a big squad. It certainly is. They could fit on a pitch together at World Stage. Yeah, I think he would have to look at that and assess that and he'll probably be doing that now over the next coming weeks and come to a summary and make his evaluations and I'm sure start putting his stamp on it in pre-season. Yeah, it's interesting. I was looking at the list of players that they've brought in. I mean, it's immense, the list, isn't it? So he's going to have to, I guess, pare it down in some respect, Paul. And I guess he's going to want to put his own stamp so I'm guessing we might see a few new faces coming at Chelsea as well. There is going to be a lot of change and we know there already has been at Chelsea the money that has been spent but they used 33 players this season and of course that is too many. Historically, Maurizio Pochettino does like to work with a smaller squad, 24-25. Okay. And we know that there will be, just look at some of the names on that, that is Thiago Silva actually alluded to it recently in an interview where he talked about how problematic it is to keep all of those players happy. So we are expecting change at Chelsea. We're expecting a minimum of 9, 10, 11 departures. I'm told that Chelsea have and can be quite ruthless with that process this summer so they are fully expecting to get that job done, to give Maurizio Pochettino the best possible chance to start the season well and to start it on his terms. And not only that and those departures, as much as those departures are the priority for Chelsea, there will be incomings as well, we understand, key positions. Most of the spending has been done, as Dave says, a lot of talented young players at Chelsea that Maurizio Pochettino can work with and blend. There's still some experience there as well but the likes of a striker, a goalkeeper, perhaps even a central midfielder in Koukou is still to come in as well. There are a lot of players who will still be, maybe three or four players still to be added to that squad but of course the key thing are departures and a lot of people, whether it be loans or whether it be some of the more experienced players, the likes of Pulisic, Ziyech, Obama-Yang, you would expect it to move on from Chelsea this summer. Dave, you just saw that huge squad. When you cast your eye on it, who's the Pochettino player for you there? You look at players like Mason Mount, you look at the younger players, I'd say the remit of 18 to 24 was the age demographic that he used to like to work with and blend some experience in there as well. When you look at that, it's a hugely talented squad but I think it will be a lot of it on the character of the players as well and he will get time to assess that during pre-season and I think as well as when you look at that squad, he does like to work from experience that I know of 22 to 24 max. Whether that will be, because obviously Chelsea might not be in Europe next year, he might be able to look at that and then assess it and look at the cup games and stuff and give different younger players a chance and opportunity to shine but it's a healthy squad for him. A few additions, definitely a striker, probably a centre midfielder looking at that and maybe a centre back if there are some departures as well. It's interesting, isn't it? When he looks at a squad, how involved is he first and foremost? Is he very hands-on? Yeah, he likes to have a say. Our job was to find the best players for him so we would look at that during the off-season, the summer transfer market once that business was done and it was on to the next market so we kind of had an idea who was coming in, who was going out, who potentially might leave. Obviously you've got to account for injuries as well so Maurizio was kept up to date, fully informed of what we're looking at in terms of player profiles going forward. So how's that process starting now then? Because he knows he's walking into this job. Is that starting right here, right now? Absolutely, yeah. So he would have already had those conversations probably with some of the recruitment team and sporting directors behind the scenes as well just to give an idea of how he sees the squad balanced out. Potential coming in, potential leaving so the work would already be well underway. I was lucky enough to talk to Pep Guardiola recently and he told me that his characteristics are really important. Sometimes he thinks the player's brilliant but actually the character isn't right for him. What's Poch like? What does he do? Does he look for characteristics, more age? What's the really number one thing for him? Yeah, character's massive for him. So at Tottenham we had, not only was it to find a talented player in terms of position and profile he believes the dressing room's quite sacred so you've got to have a balance of different characters that can work with each other, that are going to complement each other. So it was our job as the recruitment team was to do as much due diligence as we can to find out as much about the player coming in as much as where they're coming from the environments and stuff they're coming into and to arm Maurizio as much information as we can but ultimately like to sit down and talk with him as well and get that feel because he's a very touchy-feely type of character as well to get that personal feel to see if he can blend in to the way he wants to play and go forward. And in terms of a captain, what does he look for in a captain? He likes a good leader. Not necessarily a big shouter if you like someone who likes to lead by example. So if you look at someone like Harry for example I wouldn't say he's a massive talker but he leads by example on the pitch. He's a solid professional. Obviously you don't see much off-field stuff with him as well but someone who's got them good family values that other players can look up to him and aspire to be. How different will it be in terms of what he's experienced before? Because we know Chelsea have got the money so potentially they can go after anyone, right? Yeah, I think it'll be a very different situation to Tottenham It's well known that he went through a couple of transfer windows without buying a player and he worked with what he had and he was able to do that. At Chelsea, that will be the key difference. If he needs something, he will have the support of the team there the football team there that has now been developed and that's been the big change since the new ownership began at the start of their Chelsea reign. That football structure wasn't in place. It is now. It's something that they're all going to work together as a team and we know Maurizio Pochettino is very much a people person. He is, in my experience of working and dealing with him at press conferences and interviews dating right back to Southampton then through Spurs, PSG and then now coming into Chelsea he's a thoroughly decent person and I think that comes out he seems like he's a very genuine person. I remember we used to go to, when Tottenham travelled to away games in Europe, I said this on Saturday night and you turned up at the terminal we always did an interview with Maurizio Pochettino before they flew off and I always remember walking in the players coming up, shaking hands, it's been talked about a lot in some of the newspaper articles this morning just about that culture of, that's just for us as media the players were shaking hands, they would ask how you are it's that culture, it's that whole idea that you're representing a club you want to create a connection between the supporters, the fan base the media, everybody at the club, every staff member at the club and that's what he had in the changing room as well the players shook hands with each other, they embraced each other's company and that's the kind of culture, he's very big into his sensing positive energy around people and that's, I think that's what he brings in addition to all of his football experiences and the fact that some of the football he played at Southampton and Tottenham was so eye-catching, he then had a, I guess a difficult spell at PSG I say difficult but he still won the league, he won trophies there which, that was something that was thrown at him at Tottenham that he hadn't done, but he managed to do that but he also did that in a very political situation at a club like PSG when you, he often had quite a big squad actually people forget, we talk about a big squad at Chelsea huge stars as well, I think you've got to double that as well I think 10 or 11 of that PSG squad when he was there were captains of their national side, so they were huge leaders huge influence in the dressing room, he loved Angel Di Maria as a player, that wasn't always possible to play him because Messi came in, he had Messi, Neymar, Mbappe and the pressure to play those guys together Donnarumma came in at a time when he really liked Kelar Navas and so there were all of these things to have to manage and balance that maybe go on behind the scenes that not everyone sees, so it's something that it'll be interesting to see how it works at Chelsea because with a club like Chelsea we're still in the early stages of this ownership and we don't know how it's going to play out it can go the PSG way or it can go the Southampton and Tottenham way and I always get the feeling if you back Maurizio Pochettino and his team and the football team already at Chelsea now in place, if everyone's working together as a team they could be a real force next season if that all goes to plan How might he react with the hands-on owners? because we've witnessed that this season would that be good for him or not so good? He's got a nice way about him so I think as long as they've got an understanding that he's on the football side of things and obviously they're on the business side of things obviously some owners like to be more involved than others obviously he's been well documented for some of the what's gone on at Chelsea before but I think when they bring Maurizio in they're bringing someone who's very hands-on anyway he's very hands-on around the building not just with the first team staff but with the academy so they're getting a real leader and a good human being so I think as long as they've got some sort of mutual understanding when they first start out on the journey and they let him concentrate on his work I think they should get off to a good start Very briefly, it's a three-year deal I mean he would hope to obviously have the three years after a year what will he be looking at in terms of this time next season? Will he be in that top four do you think? I think he's going to Chelsea to be ambitious I think he's not going there just to steady the ship obviously they have another great season this year so he's got kind of a little bit of a free hit but from his own personal aspirations especially knowing him when he was at Tottenham Tottenham was competing against the bigger teams with maybe not the same budgets as Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea and he got the real best out of that squad so with Chelsea being what they've got I think he'll definitely be aiming for a top six or top four finish without a doubt That'll be music to Chelsea fans' ears Lovely to meet you, thanks Paul