Chelsea got three points and a clean sheet from the visit of a very limited Leeds United, but their performance won’t change many minds about Graham Potter.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. In April 1970, the FA Cup final replay between Chelsea and Leeds United attracted a British television audience of more than 28m viewers, the third highest UK audience for a sports broadcast (behind the 1966 World Cup and Euro 2020 Finals) and the sixth highest for any UK television broadcast. Leeds were chasing a treble of League title, FA Cup and European Cup. They ended the season with nothing, finishing second behind Everton. Chelsea finished third, but won the FA Cup.
What was one of the biggest games in club football in 1970 arrived in 2023 under something of a cloud. For Leeds United, victory this season looks like staying in the Premier League. After what felt like an endless period of dithering they finally settled on a new manager, and the Javi Grac-era began with a 1-0 win against Southampton which lifted them out of the relegation places. A small sign of progress following a run of ten straight games without a win; more than a quarter of their season.
That Chelsea were beaten by the same scoreline at home by Southampton in their last home league game says something about their state of mind going into this game. The Graham Potter Experiment may sound like a free-form jazz trio, but if that’s what it is, then it’s been starting to feel as though this particular jam has been meandering off down a cul-de-sac with no-one involved quite knowing where they’re heading for quite some time.
There’s no way of sugar coating it. At 3pm, Chelsea were in 10th place in the Premier League, having scored just 23 goals in 24 Premier League games and having failed to score more than a single goal in a Premier League match since the 27th December. Graham Potter doesn’t seem to know his best team, results have been poor, performances have been no better, and there have been very few signs of improvement on the horizon. This would be bad enough had the club not spent vast, vast, vast amounts of money on expectation raising new players.
And an avalanche of bad luck – particularly with injuries – hasn’t helped. On the morning of this game came another piece when it was confirmed that Reece James would not be available for this game. The absence of James has not been the direct source of Chelsea’s biggest issue this…
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