Pochettino ‘culture’ plan offers hope for Mount at Chelsea as quartet set to join

Mauricio Pochettino’s plan to ‘build a culture’ at Chelsea offers hope of a contract extension for Mason Mount.

Pochettino is now the heavy favourite to take over at Stamford Bridge after talks with Luis Enrique and Julian Nagelsmann broke down.

The Blues have apparently ‘made significant progress’ towards bringing the Argentine to Stamford Bridge.

The ‘growing expectation’ is that Pochettino will replace Potter and an announcement could be made ‘as early as this week’.

In case a deal falls through, Chelsea are keeping in contact with other candidates, with Vincent Kompany and another unnamed manager thought to be in the running, though talks with Pochettino have been ‘smooth’ thus far.

The club’s recruitment team believe the former Southampton and Spurs boss is the ‘outstanding candidate’ and his past with their London rivals ‘will not be an issue’.

The Times now report that talks with Pochettino have included backroom staff changes and plans to further develop the squad in the summer.

Pochettino would be joined by his long-time assistant, Jesús Pérez, the first-team coach Miguel D’Agostino, the goalkeeping coach Toni Jiménez and Pochettino’s son, Sebastiano, a sports scientist.

Chelsea spoke to Pochettino in September before appointing Potter and have had multiple rounds of talks in recent weeks.

Much of that discussion has involved Pochettino’s plans to ‘reshuffle’ the 31-man squad.

The report claims Pochettino wants to ‘build a culture’ in the dressing room, and believes the presence of homegrown talent is key to that.

Levi Colwill, currently on loan at Brighton, would be a big part of that, with a further report suggesting Pochettino’s ‘roadmap’ for him and January signing Mykhaylo Mudryk particularly ‘impressed’ the Chelsea bosses in talks.

But there is uncertainty over the futures of Trevoh Chalobah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Conor Gallagher, and most significantly, Mount.

The two-time Player of the Year has been told by the club that he can leave if he fails to agree an extension to his contract, which expires at the end of next season.

There have been disputes over the length of the contract as well as the salary, though it’s claimed Todd Boehly has recently sat down with Mount to again state his desire for the England international to remain at Stamford Bridge.

And that would appear to chime with the thoughts of Pochettino, who would surely see Mount as an important part of the Chelsea culture.

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