Chelsea first-team coach Bruno Saltor has ‘secretly left’ Stamford Bridge only months after Mauricio Pochettino joined the club, according to reports.
The Blues have had a terrible start to the new Premier League season with just one win from their opening six matches.
There had been hope from supporters that Pochettino could have a big impact on their results after Chelsea finished 12th in a turbulent 2022/23 season.
Their latest bad result came on Sunday when Ollie Watkins scored the only goal of the game as Aston Villa beat them 1-0 with Chelsea down to ten men after Malo Gusto had an initial yellow card upgraded by VAR to red for a challenge on Lucas Digne.
And now there was more potentially negative news coming out of the club on Monday with the Daily Telegraph claiming that first-team coach Saltor – who took caretaker charge of one match last season against Liverpool – has ‘secretly left’ the club.
Despite Chelsea not officially confirming details of his exit, the report claims that the Blues ‘have paid up the 42-year-old’s contract’ and he’s left Stamford Bridge.
The Daily Telegraph adds:
“Saltor’s exit was not officially communicated by Chelsea, with the club deciding against making any sort of public announcement.
“It means that two members of the team who joined Chelsea from Brighton with Graham Potter now remain at the club – Ben Roberts, who was given a promotion this summer to work as head of goalkeeping and Kyle Macaulay, who has continued to work as a data analyst.
“Chelsea had paid a world record £21 million to hire Potter and his staff from Brighton just over a year ago, but have now paid up the head coach and three members of his staff – Billy Reid, Bjorn Hamberg and Saltor.
“Saltor’s rollercoaster year at Chelsea in many ways reflects the chaos within Stamford Bridge over the past 12 months.”
Chelsea have only scored five goals in six Premier League matches this season but Pochettino thinks they are just getting a “little bit unlucky”.
“It was a little bit unlucky,” Pochettino said. “How many chances did we have like Aston Villa? They shoot, we block, then they shoot and it touches the post and goes in. For us, how many one v one against (Emiliano) Martinez? We were a little bit unlucky but that happens.
“We need to accept the reality. But it was unlucky because how many chances did they create? Not many. With 10 men we were forcing them to go back.
“That is unlucky. We need to be aware about what is going on but in some way we need to be calm because the team is creating, the team is alive, the team is fighting every single action.
“We cannot say anything about the players, we cannot say that they gave up after 70 minutes. They were fighting until the end with one player less.”
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