Exclusive: Chelsea legend Marcel Desailly says Mauricio Pochettino found it ‘difficult’ to handle PSG stars

Rarely before had Chelsea signed a genuine world-class player at the peak of their powers until the arrival of Marcel Desailly. He shined brilliantly for a long time and helped mould John Terry into the leader Chelsea would eventually need going into the most successful period of the club.

The 1998 World Cup winner told LondonWorld he’s been monitoring Stamford Bridge recently, and is backing Mauricio Pochetino to do a good job if he signs for Chelsea even though he struggled to manage superstars at PSG.

Desailly exclusively told LondonWorld: “Pochettino could be a good choice, he’s all the time loved by his players and he has the belief and the understanding at the highest level but also for him he realised the same problem at PSG.

“Handling top-class players was something difficult for him. He had a problem there. But for Chelsea to rebuild and create a winning mentality, he could be the correct man.”

This season has been the ultimate low for Chelsea. Marcel Desailly's arrival at the club in 1998 influenced their first-ever qualification to the Champions League and won the UEFA Super Cup in his debut season with the Blues.

Chelsea will not be in the Champions League next season and are ending a campaign that started with Thomas Tuchel with Frank Lampard, via Graham Potter and Bruno Saltor.

The Blues legend was asked if bringing back Lampard was the best decision, given he’s only won one in seven games and results haven't significantly improved.

Desailly said: “It was an opportunity for him to try and bring back the lost image he had when he got sacked. Chelsea is probably the only club that could have made him come back in this condition to help.

“But he said from the beginning that Chelsea is my club and my everything and I’m coming back to help.

“He never expected to be in the situation where he had not won for many matches and the start was completely awful before finally getting his win.

“He then got the belief and trust of the players knowing he’s not going to be there next season. We just have to thank him because he brought all his image and knowledge into the system back again after a bad experience at Everton.

“It was his choice. If it was my choice I would say never come back to a place you belong to and think that is this way but at the end of the day you’ll realise that it is not. It’s gone, the spirit the magic that you’re normally supposed to bring doesn’t work anymore so normally you should not come back but he did.”

Chelsea’s owners have been at the receiving end of the massive criticism having spent almost £600 million in the last two transfer windows. The result of this is a bloated squad of 32 first-team players including 18 signed since they took over from Roman Abramovich and 21 loanees set to return to the club in the summer.

It’s inevitable that Todd Boehly and his Clearlake consortium, owners of London’s only Champions League winning club, will always be compared to their previous Russian millionaire owner, but Desailly says Abramovich was lucky at the start. He revealed Abramovich was even contemplating withdrawing his bid from the club had they failed to qualify for the Champions League.

The former Chelsea captain added: “We were not guessing that Roman Abramovich was going to buy the club, we had done everything for it. In the deal for Roman to buy the club, the condition was that Chelsea would be in the Champions League and so if we had not qualified for the Champions League he would have withdrawn his offer. We had pressure because for it to happen it was important to be in the Champions League.

“I think the last match of the season was against Liverpool and we needed at least a draw or something like that and this was so important for the future of the club. But he was coming linked to the fact that the club was supposed to be in the Champions League.”

On the new owner, former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba recently said he could not recognise his club again. The module looks to have changed with Chelsea looking to build for the long term rather than moulding a winning machine that continues to dominate in Europe and the Premier League.

But Desailly says he wants to give them the benefit of the doubt as most new cycles have difficult beginnings.

He added: “I want to believe in the people, they made probably a mistake in bringing Potter or sacking Tuchel at the time, and probably the owners have brought too much sports feeling and you know when you own a football club it’s also for your own ego. But you feel that the owner is passionate and sometimes he overreacts because coaches don’t feed him the way he wants to be fed.

“He needs to digest the fact that sports is not like a business with a guarantee and yes you have a vision but in sports, you’re not sure to achieve it.

“In business, you invest if it’s an estate and you have a nice building, a nice location, and a contractor you’re sure you’re going to sell your apartment but for sports, it's not the same so it takes time.

“Roman was lucky because the first year he came he won the Premier League we had built the foundation for many years but these people have to restart again and reduce their personal feeling into the system. As soon as you put your personal feelings into the system, you don’t make accurate decisions.”

Desailly lifted the UEFA Super Cup, won the FA Cup in 2000, and helped Chelsea qualify for the Champions League but admits his influence on a young John Terry, guiding him and sharing leadership duties with him is one of his best moments at the club.

Desailly says with a hint of pride: “You see I was captain of almost every team I was in and a leader and I had this ability to identify potentials. And John at 17 or 18 you tell he had a leadership quality in him and it was a matter to talk to him and correct him on the lifestyle because as a teenager, you have to care about your diet, your drinking, sleeping, and many more around you.

“So I tried I just tried to guide him from a teenager who can go wrong to what he became, a top-class leader player.

“I remember in 2004 when Arsenal won the league and it was supposed to be Chelsea at the time because the Invincibles took the league from us and I was sharing the captaincy with John and it was so much a pleasure to him to express himself and he took my position by the way- but I was not feeling any source of bitterness or anything because I felt that it was like some kind of transition.

“I was giving out all my knowledge and understanding and showing that in football you need consistency. Especially as a leader. And he was naturally one.”