Pochettino closes in on Chelsea job having gained experience of volatile workplace at PSG

Ahead of the 2017 FA Cup semi-final, an ambitious young manager heard a knock on the door of his Wembley dressing-room. It was his counterpart, offering condolences for a colleague who had recently passed away. The two men then got talking.

“A wide-ranging chat,” Mauricio Pochettino, then the manager of Tottenham Hotspur recalled of his conversation with Antonio Conte, then of fellow Londoners Chelsea. “Two different approaches to football were laid bare: Talking to the manager of Chelsea is a good way of confirming how different things are. Same league, same city, but our problems are totally different.”

Fast forward a mere six years and Chelsea and Spurs look like clubs with very many problems in common. They are both under interim management, having changed head coach twice this season. Both are falling far short of targets and facing up to a 2023/24 campaign without Champions League football.

Back in the spring of 2017, they were not only the top two clubs in London, but first and second in the Premier League. Conte’s Chelsea ended up winning it and defeating Pochettino’s Spurs in that cup semi-final.

In the period since, Spurs terminated Pochettino’s five-and-a-half year tenure as their manager, and, after bringing in another ex-Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, have hired and said goodbye to another, Conte. Chelsea now look ready to complete the circular dance by offering Pochettino the chance to become the fifth manager to take charge of their first team in the space of a year.

The Argentine, 51, is eager to manage again in England. He feels more worldly that he was in 2017, thanks to the uplift he gave Spurs and a testing period in charge of Paris Saint-Germain, and is understood to be giving Chelsea serious