Chelsea Must Be Patient with Graham Potter

Graham Potter (Chelsea)

One of the shocking decisions made by any club this season was Chelsea’s sacking of Thomas Tuchel to replace him with Graham Potter.

The Englishman had done admirably well as the boss of Brighton, but most people will argue it doesn’t make him the right choice to replace Tuchel. The German had won the Champions League and Club World Cup for the Blues in less than two years as their manager. He also reached the final of the domestic cup competitions and certainly seemed the best manager for their team.

However, Todd Boehly pulled the trigger and sacked him after they had lost a Champions League game in Croatia against Dinamo Zagreb. Sacking Tuchel was not the wrong decision, but replacing him with an unproven coach shows the lack of experience the club’s new owners have. Roman Abramovich was one of the best club owners in the world when he owned Chelsea, and one thing he would always do is to replace his manager with a better one.
That means an accomplished gaffer who has proven to be one of the best around, and that certainly does not describe Potter.

However, he has done some fine jobs at his former clubs, most notably leading unknown Ostersunds to the Europa League group stages and beating Arsenal on the way. The 47-year-old did a fantastic job at Brighton and left them in the Champions League places when he took over the Chelsea job.
However, managing both clubs is not the same thing and he will need to be in exceptional form to meet the expectations at Stamford Bridge.

One thing we can learn from his time as Brighton’s boss is that Potter’s teams get better with time.
He keeps improving his team per season and he can replicate that at Chelsea if given the time, which is why Boehly must be patient with him. There are several reasons Potter has to be given time to get the job done, and we will highlight some of them in this article.


Players Unfit For His System

Potter inherited a group of players that he did not buy and has had to fit them into his tactics.
The English gaffer is one of the most tactically flexible managers in the Premier League, who often tinker with his formation. He took his time to build a solid squad at Brighton and has found some players at Chelsea that does not fit into his system.

He needs time to either develop a system that will suit them and bring out their best or offload some and buy players who can work seamlessly for him. This takes time, and Chelsea must be committed to a long-term project for Potter to have permission to build his team.


Patience paid at Liverpool and Arsenal

Arsenal made an inexperienced Mikel Arteta their manager at the end of 2019 after sacking Unai Emery, who had led them to the final of the Europa League in the same year. Arteta had no prior managerial experience, which made his appointment an enormous gamble for the Gunners.

However, they have given the Spaniard time. Three years later, his team sits atop the Premier League table heading into the World Cup and Christmas break. Liverpool similarly trusted Jurgen Klopp with their managerial job in October 2015.

The German had experience and achieved enormous success at Borussia Dortmund, but he took over a terrible Liverpool side that was in transition after hitting its peak. Klopp needed four years to win a trophy at Anfield, but when the first came, others came along, including a first league crown in 30 years.

Liverpool and Arsenal’s recent successes prove managers will deliver when given time on the job, and Chelsea will be smart to follow their blueprint.


The Need For a Potter Pre-season

Chelsea made Potter their manager after the season had begun, with Tuchel training the players in pre-season.
That training before the campaign starts properly is one of the most important parts of a team’s preparation for the season and Potter missed that with Chelsea.

He had adequately drilled his Brighton side and it showed in their performance before he moved to London.
He needs at least one pre-season with the squad to train them on what he expects on the pitch.
In a regular season, the games come thick and fast, making it hard for him to implement all his tactics and systems.


A Squad In Transition

Chelsea signed some inexperienced players in the last transfer window, which is a lot of credit to them.
It shows the new owner recognises the need to refresh the squad and make the average age younger.
But that doesn’t change the fact that this Blues team is in transition, with most of their players entering the twilight of their careers.

They have rarely had the chance to call on N’Golo Kante for action this season because he is injured often, which may not be unconnected to his age.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is 33, Thiago Silva is 38, Cesar Azpilicueta is 33, while Kalidou Koulibaly is 31. These players have between one and three more seasons to play at the top level of football, so Potter is struggling to get outstanding performances from them. He needs to be given enough time to replace these ageing stars with players at the peak of their careers. That is one of the shortest cuts to success, but Chelsea does not have a history of giving managers the time to succeed.


Owner-influenced Signings

Boehly bought Chelsea from Abramovich in the summer and went on a spending spree. He splashed £271.1 million on new players who are mostly individuals he liked to see in blue. An obvious case of his spending money on players for his satisfaction was sanctioning a £12.6m move for Cesare Casadei, a player who had not even broken into the Inter Milan first team.

Potter has inherited a squad that seems exciting on paper, thanks to the financial backing of the Blues owners, but they have brought in these players to satisfy Boehly and the former manager. Potter will find stars that suit his style of play among the options at his disposal, but he will probably want to sign his players.

This means he needs time to offload unwanted men at the club and bring in recruits who will deliver in his system. The gaffer proved his class at Brighton and it is a much harder job to keep Chelsea inside the Premier League top-four and win trophies.

However, with the support of the Blues fans who buy Chelsea tickets for their matches, this team will return to its best days soon. But Potter needs time to do the job because he is not a magician and lasting success must be built on the right foundation. Chelsea must copy from the playbooks of Liverpool and Arsenal who have backed their managers with the right resources to achieve success.

There is no guarantee that Potter is the right man for the job yet, but if they afford him enough time to build his team and he fails, he will have no one else to blame but himself.
It would be interesting to see where his team finishes at the end of this term. If they make the top four, we must give him credit for the achievement.

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