Chelsea terminate Bruno Saltor’s contract less than four months into Mauricio Pochettino era

Chelsea first-team coach Bruno Saltor has left the club amid a reshuffle of Mauricio Pochettino’s backroom staff.

Pochettino has yet to decide whether he will bring in his own replacement.

After six games, Chelsea has had its worst start to the season since 1978.

Saltor came to Stamford Bridge as part of Graham Potter’s coaching staff and acted as Chelsea caretaker when the former Brighton manager was sacked after just 31 games in charge.

Potter and Saltor worked together at Brighton, where the Spaniard was youth development coach.

But Sky Sports News has confirmed that Saltor has now also left Chelsea, with the two parties reaching a mutual agreement to terminate the remaining two years of his contract.

Poch: Players need to ‘grow up’

Mauricio Pochettino called on his players to collectively “grow up” after the 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa this weekend condemned them to their worst top-flight start in 45 years.

Pochettino will now be without his starting striker Nicolas Jackson, who picked up a fifth yellow card in his sixth Premier League match, earning him a one-match ban, and Malo Gusto after the Frenchman’s red card.

But the wider squad have now failed to score in three games in a row and the poor run has left the Blues in 14th place in the Premier League, with their measly five-point win after six games the worst result since 1978 .

“We have to grow as a team, and not just individually,” Pochettino said. “A player like Nicolas is still so young and is busy finding and learning his way to the Premier League.

“He needs time, and in these kinds of games we compete and we want to win. But the players, when they are young, have to learn through experience and when they make a mistake.”

“That’s why we feel disappointed because we pay too much for these kinds of situations. These kinds of things are still a small detail and in the end we lose the match. We are in a situation that we have to change as soon as possible.” “

Neville: Chelsea chaos ‘a mystery’

Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville:

“What’s happening? I have a lot of confidence in Mauricio Pochettino, but he just has a huge deck of cards and he’s probably struggling to know which hand to play.

“It’s a mystery when it comes to what happens at Chelsea. I’ve said before that sometimes chaos flows through the club. I’ve said it about United and there’s no doubt about that.”

“There will be some changes, I don’t think they will change the manager, but I think there will be some changes in terms of how they go about their business and who does the business in the next twelve months.

“I don’t see it lasting in terms of how it’s being run, it’s madness. They’re going to have to hang in there because at the moment they’re off to a really bad start. The results are going to have to improve quickly.”