Chelsea have now lost more games than they have won under Graham Potter and Todd Boehly will be rueing the contrast between his struggles and Unai Emery’s impact on Aston Villa…
Todd Boehly professes patience but Chelsea are stretching their owner’s limits while they languish in the bottom half of the Premier League table. The owner didn’t spaff £600million for the best view of a relegation battle.
Chelsea find themselves looking up at the top 10 after being turned over by Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge. The home fans certainly don’t appreciate the current company they are keeping, with calls for Graham Potter to go before those who stuck around booed their beaten team off the pitch.
Potter can only hope that Boehly is benevolent billionaire but his treatment of Thomas Tuchel suggests it might be forlorn. Having now lost more games than he has won as Chelsea manager, Potter is perilously close to the edge.
Of course, he tried to look at the bright side after watching Villa do a job on his players. “If you look at the stats of the game, it’s a positive performance,” he said, and he might have a point. Chelsea had a better xG – 2.09-0.81 – using their 69 per cent possession to muster up 27 shots.
Is it Potter’s fault that his players don’t possess the necessary ruthlessness? This was no one off – Chelsea have failed to score in nine of the manager’s 22 games in charge. The absence of a clinical goalscorer is more damning on the individuals who threw together the Blues’ bloated squad, Boehly included.
Nor can Potter legislate for the kind of defending that gifted Villa their opener. Marc Cucurella meddled where he has no business, diverting the ball beyond Kalidou Koulibaly to allow Ollie Watkins a free run on goal. That’s on the Spaniard.
But Potter is responsible for fielding Cucurella in a back-three and some of the other decisions over shape and selection that have so baffled the Chelsea supporters. And the lack of potency is becoming a theme around the manager. He had the same problems at Brighton, and it is looking less of a coincidence that their profligacy went with him and his staff when they jumped ship for Stamford Bridge.
That made Potter the most expensive manager in the game and Boehly has previously made it known that he will judge that particular investment on seasons, not streaks. If Potter offered any suggestion that he knew the formula to make Chelsea tick, it would be easier for Boehly to stand by…
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