Chelsea co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali met in Los Angeles over the weekend to discuss the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino.
Boehly and Eghbali spent the weekend in the United States amid ongoing talks with Pochettino, who is expected to take over at Stamford Bridge in the summer.
Clearlake Capital co-founder Eghbali was spotted at an LA Lakers NBA match and he was asked who the next Chelsea will be. After being asked whether it will Pochettino, Eghbali winked and said: “Maybe, maybe”.
Pochettino continues to negotiate without an agent and is in a strong position to leverage his terms given the turmoil at Chelsea.
The former Tottenham manager is expected to ask for his four members of backroom staff to join him at Chelsea, and will want significant influence on the direction of the club.
Chelsea have denied reports they are set to appoint Monaco sporting director Paul Mitchell, a close friend of Pochettino, to attract the Argentine to the job.
Frank Lampard will continue as caretaker manager until the end of the season, despite losing five successive matches since taking over.
Chelsea face the top four in the Premier League - starting with Tuesday’s visit to Arsenal - in their final six matches.
Lampard said: “Do they need to take their time to get the right manager? Yeah, they absolutely should do that.
“We are at that stage of the season now where we understand that we are not going to get into Europe, and other managers are probably going, ‘I’ll take a look at this and wait till pre-season when I can enforce what I want to do’. It’s not silly on their part.”
