Chelsea head coach Graham Potter has revealed several senior players have informed him last summer’s pre-season was the worst of their careers, believing it to be one reason for their subpar campaign.
Following the ousting of Roman Abramovich as owner last year amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital completed their takeover of the Blues shortly prior to the 2022/23 season.
Plans for pre-season were hastily organised, flying to the United States for three matches before facing Udinese twice in Italy.
Manager Thomas Tuchel was sacked at the start of September just weeks after the end of a frantic summer transfer window in which Chelsea spent a record spend of over £250m, with Potter arriving from Brighton soon after.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s trip to Tottenham, Potter pointed to these factors as reasons behind Chelsea’s disappointing season so far.
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“My quote a few weeks ago was that this is probably the toughest job in football, and there are a lot of factors for that,” Potter said.
“There was a sub-optimal pre-season – and speaking to a few of the experienced guys, they thought it was the worst pre-season they’ve had for different reasons. That isn’t to blame anybody for the reasons. It’s just that it happened.
“It was more organisationally, for different reasons, the tour didn’t quite work as well as they’d have liked. I wasn’t there so I can’t say.
“That was one thing, then old players left, new players came in, a manager change, and I turn up in the middle of a Champions League Saturday/Tuesday schedule. We have the most unprecedented injury situation in that period in the Premier League.
“We played Newcastle before the break and we had no Kepa [Arrizabalaga], no Reece James, no Ben Chilwell, no Marc Cucurella, no Wesley Fofana, no N’Golo Kante, no Raheem Sterling, no Ruben Loftus-Cheek after two minutes, and no Cesar Azpilicueta. We lost 1-0 and that is where we were at.
“We then had the World Cup, then the club invest a lot of money in the squad and the pressure, expectation, and noise goes up. But the players we got, they’re not 28-year-old, 400-game Premier League players. They are young players that take time to adapt to, and at the same time…
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