The World Cup break has come at the right time for Graham Potter, who should do the opposite of all Chelsea managers before him to succeed…
“I can’t pinpoint it to the point where it’s a simple solution,” Potter said when asked about Chelsea’s run of poor form in the lead-up to the World Cup. There’s no single pressing issue but a number of them for Potter to mull over in the next month because, injury and schedule caveats aside, there’s no doubt “the team can function better than they are”.
As has been the Chelsea way, after a fallow period in which the team has picked up 11 points from a possible 24 in the Premier League, a list of managerial suitors to take over at Stamford Bridge has emerged. Mauricio Pochettino and Zinedine Zidane, more typical Chelsea appointments than Potter, or ‘proper managers’ as the plastic Blues fans on social media might call them, were among those suggested by the Daily Express, who jumped a gun the media has become accustomed to firing from the Chelsea boardroom in the manager’s direction.
In response, Todd Boehly et al. insisted their ‘support for Potter and the long-term project they share is unwavering’. Recent history should not be reason to doubt that support, given the willy-nilly hiring and firing was done under a different regime. But we have nothing other than their word, which has passed from the horse’s mouth to The Athletic via a club intermediary or three. It’s also not a wildly different statement to the sort made by a club immediately before a manager is shown the door.
The key for Potter, if his long-term project is to be a success, will be to avoid the temptation of short-termism. Reneging on the principles that earned him his shot at Chelsea will be tempting to achieve immediate gains, but it will only hamper his and the club’s progress beyond this season. He’s got to have faith that the results don’t matter as much as the process right now, which will require a huge change of mindset at Chelsea.
The fans are among the most impatient in world football, having been fattened by consistent trophies and Champions League football over the last two decades, but Potter must grin and bare a situation which will likely get worse before it gets better, and trust that if he sticks to his guns the muzzle won’t be turned on him.
Potter arrived at Chelsea six games into the Premier League season, less than a week after the end of a transfer window in which eight new…
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