Chelsea aren’t the greatest team of the last 15 years - but Mauricio Pochettino is starting to set the mood

"In the last 10, 12, 15 years, Chelsea is the greatest team in England.”

The diplomatic words of new manager Mauricio Pochettino as he conducted his first interview since formally taking charge of a team that spent last season in freefall. An exaggeration? Perhaps, but you can’t blame him for starting his reign by harking back to a more prosperous past.

The mood around Stamford Bridge could at best be described as “frustrated” since the Roman Abramovic era came to an abrupt end and Clearlake Capital rocked up with their plan to throw money cluelessly to all four winds. The squad which won the 2021 Champions League has been broken up and a new team, cobbled together seemingly at random, has been hastily assembled in its stead. Initial results have been distinctly discouraging.

So while Pochettino has enough on his plate trying to translate the tactical gibberish he’s inherited into a coherent team, he also has to get the atmosphere sorted as well. A Netflix crew in the Chelsea dressing room wasn’t necessary to imagine that the mood was less than conducive by the time Frank Lampard issued his last pre-match speech.

And so the Argentinian harks back to past glories. He isn’t really correct, of course, to suggest that Chelsea have been the best team in English football over the past 15 years. They have one more Champions League title than Manchester City, of course, and even one more FA Cup, but City’s seven Premier League trophies rather eclipses Chelsea’s three and Pep Guardiola’s team can boast a six-to-one advantage when it comes to the League Cup.

Push it back to 20 years and the early successes of José Mourinho and you can certainly make a case, but even if you decide to be generous to Pochettino’s claims and suggest he was simply a few years off with his guesstimates, it’s hard to feel that even the best team Mourinho put together at Stamford Bridge can hold too much of a candle to the squad assembled by Guardiola in the past few years. City are playing on a different planet to everyone else right now, and perhaps to everyone else in the history of the English game.

So sure, Pochettino was wrong, and plenty of fans are having a good laugh about it on social media (provided they saw it at all and they didn’t use their daily tweet allocation up too early, of course) – but then, factual accuracy isn’t the point. By recalling past victories he is trying to reset the feeling of inferiority that pervades the club after a season that wasn’t just disastrous for the club but also for many of their individual players. And, of course, the fans.

“In the end, the most important thing in football is for [the fans] to be happy and to feel proud of us and in the way we approach games. The players need to know that,” continued the former Spurs and Southampton manager. “There are always up and downs in the history of football, but Chelsea is a club that it is impossible to have these up and downs.”

"We need to be sure that we bring what the club needs to be at the top because the history of the club is to be at the top."

A message for the players, then – get yourself sorted out mentally – and one for the fans, too, a gentle reminder of the times when their support induced pride rather than pain. Of course, a few well-chosen words won’t overwrite all the catastrophes of 2022/23 and nor will a somewhat more sensible transfer window magically rebalance a squad which is bloated with players who are neither wanted nor needed. But then, Pochettino has only been there for four days. One thing at a time.

And give Pochettino his dues – he knows how to charm a fanbase, and a dressing room. He was hugely popular both in the stands and on the training fields at Southampton and Spurs. His warm nature, apparent openness and honesty and his gentle eccentricity (he used to keep a bowl of lemons in his office under the impression that they would absorb negative energy in a room) all combined to make him the sort of coach players enjoyed working under, and his attacking, energetic football kept the fans happy even when the silverware failed to flow at Spurs.

Of course, managing Chelsea is a different matter. They may not be the greatest team of the last few years, but they’re a pretty solid second. After the success of the Abramovich era, the minimum expectations are much higher than they might have been 20 years ago (or indeed 10, 12 or 15) and while Spurs fans are perhaps willing to tolerate coming second when the football is so thrilling - and, lest we forget, it really was - Chelsea fans would be unlikely to accept being exciting also-rans for any length of time. Todd Boehly’s first season as the big boss has set the bar exceptionally low for now, but that same bar will shoot up quickly, and Pochettino had better learn how to win trophies before too long or no volume of good vibes will suffice.

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For now though, allow Pochettino the chance to turn on the charm and try to introduce a gentle warm glow to Cobham. Their summer business looks substantially more astute than it did last season (another bar low enough for a limbo competition, granted) and they still have plenty of good players, young and old, to work with. A slightly overwrought soundbite doesn’t really change any of that – not that it will do much good, either, if Pochettino can’t get off to a decent start. Patience has not looked like one of Todd Boehly’s virtues so far.