Chelsea suffer huge blow as key member of Mauricio Pochettino’s backroom staff leaves for new job

CHELSEA have suffered a huge blow to their coaching staff ahead of their clash with Tottenham this evening.

The club’s head of loan moves, Andy Myers, 50, has left his role in order to join Joe Edwards’ backroom staff at Millwall.

Myers has left his role as Chelsea’s loan managerGetty

Edwards held a prominent role on Chelsea‘s coaching staff under ex-boss Frank Lampard before taking over England’s Under-20s team in August.

He was appointed Millwall manager today and his Chelsea connection has seen him poach Myers away from Stamford Bridge, meaning Chelsea will now need to appoint a new loan player technical coach.

Chelsea’s ‘loan army’ has always been a key pillar of player development at the club.

While the days are now gone when Chelsea would have 40 players on loan at one time due to new regulations – Myers was still in charge of keeping an eye on the progress of 11 players this season.

The coach was tasked with keeping a particularly close eye on the squad’s younger talents such as Harvey Vale at Bristol City, Cesare Casadei at Leicester and Omari Hutchinson at Ipswich.

There are also the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Hakim Ziyech and Kepa Arrizabalaga who are all loan players with no future at the club.

It would have been under Myers’ remit to help find these players permanent moves at the end of their loan spells.

Myers came through the youth academy at Chelsea in the 1990s before making over 100 first-team appearances for The Blues.

After retiring in 2005 he moved into coaching and became involved with the youth setup at Cobham in 2012.

He has held a number of coaching roles at the club before he took up the role of loan manager last summer.

His departure to join Millwall brings an end to his over a decade long association with the club.