Mauricio Pochettino has said he won’t promise Cole Palmer playing time, a policy the Chelsea manager has always enforced, even with Lionel Messi.
Pochettino spoke about Palmer’s £42.5m move at a press conference ahead of Chelsea’s meeting with Nottingham Forest on Saturday. Asked about the 21-year-old’s desire to play in the first team, Pochettino said he wouldn’t offer any guarantees.
Pochettino explained: If someone guarantees a player to play, that’s fine, but that’s not the case here.
“The player has to come and play, let us manage and then if he deserves to play he will, I’m sure it was the same at City. But for us, even if you pay a lot of money for a player at Chelsea, it does not mean that you are guaranteed to play. This is not the right way to think”.
“People need to learn this. When we sign a player, it’s to be part of the team, to be involved in the team, to be part of the club. He must be part of the dynamics of the club. We never sign players who we promise they will play. It never happened, even when we signed Messi from Paris St-Germain”.
