Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino early favourites in race for next Chelsea manager

Scott Allen
7 September 2022

Brighton and Hove Albion manager Graham Potter

Brighton manager Graham Potter and former Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino lead the race to replace Thomas Tuchel as the next Chelsea manager.

Potter is odds-on favourite at 10/11, while bookies have the 50-year-old Argentinian at 7/4 in the early markets.

Tuchel was suprisingly given the elbow after Chelsea's miserable defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

Pochettino has been out of work since he was sacked by PSG in the summer after failing to impress in an 18-month spell in the French capital.

Zinedine Zidane is just behind Pochettino at 5/1, while Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers lurks at a surprisingly short 14/1.

A Jose Mourinho return looks unlikely at 40/1, while John Terry would be a big surprise at 33/1. Luckily the fire engine appointment of Sam Allardyce is way off at 100/1.

Chelsea fans have already called for Potter to be installed as the new manager with a fans spokesman saying: "The obvious choice is Graham Potter. He's a fantastic manager, but whether he's going to want to leave Brighton and shoot himself in the foot…and that's compensation (that would need to be paid).

"(Mauricio) Pochettino, I don't know whether he's the man because he's not exactly set the world alight in Paris. In Paris, you pretty much just turn up and you win the French league. I love Graham Potter because he's a very progressive coach."

New owners Boehly and Eghbali are in the process of overhauling every aspect of the Blues' operation, and have acted quickly to unseat Tuchel.

The highly-regarded German coach has overseen three defeats in seven matches in the new campaign, after the Blues invested a one-window Premier League record £273million to revamp the squad.

Tuchel played a key role in Chelsea's recruitment this summer, with Boehly acting as interim sporting director as well as chairman.

The former Paris Saint-Germain coach also steered Chelsea through the mire of UK Government sanctions from March to May last season, amid the wider impact of Russia's war in Ukraine.