Chelsea Sack Graham Potter

[east lower]

7 hours ago, Michael Tucker said:

We're doomed! If this is true, then both Boehly and Potter need to be removed. Where's Roman when you need him?

When you look back at the better sides in the PL there maybe was a person/couple of people that made the club the success it was at the time, such as:

Arsenal - Wenger/Dein

Man Utd - SAF

Chelsea - RA

Liverpool - JK

Man City - PG + their owners

Once their influence diminishes or one of them disappears so does the mixture that made the club the success it was/is. That remains to be seen at Man City when PG decides times-up. 
 

Perhaps that’s where we are as a club, in a phase of change. Problem now is, we’ve spent so much that we probably can’t spend our way out of it to right any wrongs. We’ve a dud (at the level we are now used to over the last 20 years) as a manager, owners who appear to not see/recognise their obvious mistake and appear to have no Plan B. If they as is being rumoured want to give Mr Potter a full-season next season, we are royally ******.
 

Like a few here now, I know the coach isn’t up to it but am also questioning whether the owners understand the PL and proper football?

Ive never in 50 years of supporting us booed my club, if the owners continue down what I truly believe is the road to many years of mediocrity, maybe the only way to get them to listen is to vocalise and/or visualise how fans feel. 
 

That’s if the owners have the stomach and wallet to actually get things right.

[xceleryx]

18 minutes ago, martin1905 said:

1st, 5th, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 3rd.

The points separating 3rd-5th are always pretty tight, usually around 5 so you could argue everyone that finishes 4th are scraping it. We do it consistently though, almost every year so would say we were comfortably a top 4 side. 

We now are in relegation form and have been since October.

It is always tight in terms of points, but I think it's also been very tight (and in some cases lucky) with respects to the performances had to secure those positions. Which is more how I was looking at it and probably should've clarified better initially. In some of those years we were incredibly fortunate to make it imo. 

Not disagreeing our present day form has been even worse however.

[martin1905]

10 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

It is always tight in terms of points, but I think it's also been very tight (and in some cases lucky) with respects to the performances had to secure those positions. Which is more how I was looking at it and probably should've clarified better initially. In some of those years we were incredibly fortunate to make it imo. 

Not disagreeing our present day form has been even worse however.

That's the same with every team, every year though. I guarantee if you look at every team that finishes 4th there will be performances, during the course of the season that were lucky. Maybe because we have dropped points later in the season it looks worse, I can't really remember but it's a 38 games season.

It's only really the end of 20/21 that was tight/lucky but we had the little matter of the champions league final to worry about so no suprise really.

I mean, we've finished top 4  four years on the bounce, finishing third last year so I think it's fair to say Potter took over team that was comfortably top 4.

 

[Holymoly]

8 hours ago, Michael Tucker said:

Sorry Bob, but I have to ask what point you're making?

I'd be more concerned if I was Newcastle. At least we've only dropped two places.

[Ham]

5 hours ago, Michael Tucker said:

Staggering, isn't it? What I hope is that Todd and his buddies sell our club (quickly) and move quietly on. If he's the answer, then I can only assume that it was a stupid question!

Reactionary nonsense. We were lauding most of the signings and business decisions made until the last few games.  There's nothing wrong with the owners or their ambitions.  I just think they're being a bit blasé about the possibility of relegation, that's all. 

It's all on the coaching and, not for the first time, the highly paid primadonna players.  

[Thiago97]

3 hours ago, martin1905 said:

Been blatantly obvious since they sacked Tuchel and put together a £70m package for Graham Potter. 

They've then thrown money around and it's gotten them a lot of goodwill with some fans, especially the internet based ones.

We have spent £600m+ on players most of us had never heard of at the beginning of the season,with the exception of Sterling, Cucurella and Fofana but most didn't want Sterling and Fofana and Cucurella were massively overpriced.

I certainly can't think of any being touted as possible targets, but after a bit of YouTubing every Chelsea fan thinks we bought some of the best talent available, even though we've never seen them play before.

We've given them massive long term contracts, clever businesses we all said to get round FFP but £600m has been spent and we have gone from comfortably top 4 to relegation fodder. 

I wonder how good we could have been if we had spent that £600m differently and kept Tuchel. 

A little more re-writing of history here. You were very positive about our summer dealings! As is normally the case with our transfer dealings.
Of course , you can deny this. However, you did also make a bet before season started that we would make top4.

Arsenal and Spurs were not the threats that others claimed.

So it begs the question, if you were not too keen on Sterling, Cucurella and Fofana at those prices. What made you so confident to strike the bet you made? It can’t be just laid at the feet of internet Chelsea fans , can it?

Edited February 21, 2023 by Thiago97

[martin1905]

9 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

A little more re-writing of history here. You were very positive about our summer dealings! As is normally the case with our transfer dealings.
Of course , you can deny this. However, you did also make a bet before season started that we would make top4.

Arsenal and Spurs were not the threats that others claimed.

So it begs the question, if you were not too keen on Sterling, Cucurella and Fofana at those prices. What made you so confident to strike the bet you made? It can’t be just laid at the feet of internet Chelsea fans , can it?

Completely misinterpreted what I said again.

 

[Max Fowler]

1 hour ago, Ham said:

Reactionary nonsense. We were lauding most of the signings and business decisions made until the last few games.  There's nothing wrong with the owners or their ambitions.  I just think they're being a bit blasé about the possibility of relegation, that's all. 

It's all on the coaching and, not for the first time, the highly paid primadonna players.  

I do think the players have been largely solid purchases, but many seem to have bought to throw money at Potter and buy him out of the hole he is in. Why have we spent so much at once, in January? To paper over the cracks - so Potter simply cannot lose with a squad this good. That is more concerning in terms of owner attitude - throwing money at a situation rather than understanding the root issues at play.

[Thiago97]

10 minutes ago, martin1905 said:

Completely misinterpreted what I said again.

 

Well no not really. I completely understand the point you are trying to make. I just don’t think it’s entirely accurate and does not align with your confidence back in July/August. To be fair to you, I accept your confidence was based on Tuchel being the manager. 

I didn’t misinterpret our last discussion either. You actually confirmed the points I challenged were right and that you did say them, bar semantics on the actual wordings.

[Mark Kelly]

4 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

I do think the players have been largely solid purchases, but many seem to have bought to throw money at Potter and buy him out of the hole he is in. Why have we spent so much at once, in January? To paper over the cracks - so Potter simply cannot lose with a squad this good. That is more concerning in terms of owner attitude - throwing money at a situation rather than understanding the root issues at play.

I think we spent so much money in January because of two reasons .

The first is the rules of amortization are changing from next year apparently so they got their players in early which also allowed those players half a season to bed in and get acclimated to the pace of the Premier League which knocks on to the reason they're cutting Potter some slack this season .

Secondly the fear that they would be outbid for players should United be sold as is likely to Qatari investors , leaving us in competition with them , City , Newcastle who have deeper pockets.

[Bison]

Potter got the Chelsea job on the back of a 14 game Premier League run with Brighton.

After 30 games played in the 21/22 season, Brighton were 14th in the table. Their record at the time:

• 7 wins
• 12 draws
• 11 defeats
• 26 goals
• 39 conceded

Who at that stage would ever consider Potter a future Chelsea manager?

Potter managed 14 more games for Brighton (8 to end last last and 6 to start this season) and they picked up 9 wins. That's amazing for a relatively small club but there have been managers who have done similar yet I would never want them to manage Chelsea.

*Potter also had favourable press from a media desperate to have an English manager at a 'top 6' club. I'm convinced this was a factor for Boehley and Clearlake who were finding Tuchel difficult to work with. That was the perfect storm for what played out and here we are now with an average manager picking up average results.

[xceleryx]

31 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

I do think the players have been largely solid purchases, but many seem to have bought to throw money at Potter and buy him out of the hole he is in. Why have we spent so much at once, in January? To paper over the cracks - so Potter simply cannot lose with a squad this good. That is more concerning in terms of owner attitude - throwing money at a situation rather than understanding the root issues at play.

I wouldn't say we've tried to paper over cracks with our January signings. The age demographic clearly has the future in mind more so than the immediate present. Mudryk hadn't kicked a ball since November and Madueke had barely kicked a football for PSV this season, both were always going to need a lot of fitness preparation before anything can truly be expected of them. Enzo and to a degree Joao Felix were really the only two signings made that were geared at making immediate impacts, with Badiashile being a bit of a bonus as he had an opening courtesy of injuries and form of our other CB options. 

That was never going to be enough to dramatically lift us on its own, let alone paper over cracks. And as @Mark Kellytouched on in his post, there were also other factors at play with respects to why we spent as much as we did when we did. 

[Thiago97]

19 minutes ago, Bison said:

Potter got the Chelsea job on the back of a 14 game Premier League run with Brighton.

After 30 games played in the 21/22 season, Brighton were 14th in the table. Their record at the time:

• 7 wins
• 12 draws
• 11 defeats
• 26 goals
• 39 conceded

Who at that stage would ever consider Potter a future Chelsea manager?

Potter managed 14 more games for Brighton (8 to end last last and 6 to start this season) and they picked up 9 wins. That's amazing for a relatively small club but there have been managers who have done similar yet I would never want them to manage Chelsea.

*Potter also had favourable press from a media desperate to have an English manager at a 'top 6' club. I'm convinced this was a factor for Boehley and Clearlake who were finding Tuchel difficult to work with. That was the perfect storm for what played out and here we are now with an average manager picking up average results.

I think the other thing to factor in here, and it seems to be something the new owners did not factor in enough. Potter done a good job at Brighton, we can all twist it by goals scored and finishing position etc etc. He clearly did a good job with the tools he was presented with, changed their style of play away from a more pragmatic safe manager in Hughton previously........The area that has not been factored in is where the brains behind the set up sits. Tony Bloom is as shrewd as they come. He is a smart business man who has made his money from the combination of data and betting.

We decided to take the coach who had the team playing well. The brains behind it all is the man who set up that infrastructure, the man who deployed the data and statistics within his set up, that identified the players they signed for value and then presented those plays to Potter. I am sure Potter and his team had some input in this area, a bit like they have some input now. However, the infrastructure sits with the ownership model already in situ at Brighton , and that whole infrastructure sits right in the wheel arch of how/why Bloom makes his money.

Chelsea owners clearly value the work Potter done at Brighton, and in many ways they were correct to value that. What they probably have not paid enough attention to is how smart everything behind the scenes are at Brighton, which created the perfect platform for Potter to attract such positive attention. The whole infrastructure we are trying to build is at least 5-10 years behind Brighton, but without the deep skillset to understand it in the same level of detail. Potter walked into this at Brighton when it was all well established , here he is walking in right at the start effectively.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Thiago97

[Miguelito07]

50 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

I do think the players have been largely solid purchases, but many seem to have bought to throw money at Potter and buy him out of the hole he is in. Why have we spent so much at once, in January?

I think its because the Board see us not qualify for Europe next season so better buy in Jan than no one (as good) in the summer

[Mark Kelly]

14 minutes ago, Bison said:

Potter got the Chelsea job on the back of a 14 game Premier League run with Brighton.

After 30 games played in the 21/22 season, Brighton were 14th in the table. Their record at the time:

• 7 wins
• 12 draws
• 11 defeats
• 26 goals
• 39 conceded

Who at that stage would ever consider Potter a future Chelsea manager?

Potter managed 14 more games for Brighton (8 to end last last and 6 to start this season) and they picked up 9 wins. That's amazing for a relatively small club but there have been managers who have done similar yet I would never want them to manage Chelsea.

*Potter also had favourable press from a media desperate to have an English manager at a 'top 6' club. I'm convinced this was a factor for Boehley and Clearlake who were finding Tuchel difficult to work with. That was the perfect storm for what played out and here we are now with an average manager picking up average results.

An Alan Pardew for our times .

I suppose we'd all have wanted Eddie Howe earlier in the season , now not so much.

I'm guessing what the owners saw in him was the ability to improve players which he definitely did and also to get his side playing if not winning football then good football, which again he delivered even though it took him a few seasons to instil his ideal on his players .

I think this is why he's not under the pressure we believe he should be from the board .

[Max Fowler]

16 minutes ago, xceleryx said:

I wouldn't say we've tried to paper over cracks with our January signings. The age demographic clearly has the future in mind more so than the immediate present. Mudryk hadn't kicked a ball since November and Madueke had barely kicked a football for PSV this season, both were always going to need a lot of fitness preparation before anything can truly be expected of them. Enzo and to a degree Joao Felix were really the only two signings made that were geared at making immediate impacts, with Badiashile being a bit of a bonus as he had an opening courtesy of injuries and form of our other CB options. 

That was never going to be enough to dramatically lift us on its own, let alone paper over cracks. And as @Mark Kellytouched on in his post, there were also other factors at play with respects to why we spent as much as we did when we did. 

I refuse to admit Mudryk is not a player who was bought for the here and now. Arsenal wanted him to help them win the title - right now. Even if he takes a couple of weeks to get fit it can still be a signing to paper over the cracks.

[martin1905]

51 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

Well no not really. I completely understand the point you are trying to make. I just don’t think it’s entirely accurate and does not align with your confidence back in July/August. To be fair to you, I accept your confidence was based on Tuchel being the manager. 

 

Quite a big difference then to be fair.

51 minutes ago, Thiago97 said:

I didn’t misinterpret our last discussion either. You actually confirmed the points I challenged were right and that you did say them, bar semantics on the actual wordings.

Well if you want to call me claiming Potter was my first choice even though I said I wanted him above  Pochettino and Rodgers is just semantics then that's fine by me 👍🏻

[Ham]

2 hours ago, Mark Kelly said:

I think we spent so much money in January because of two reasons .

The first is the rules of amortization are changing from next year apparently so they got their players in early which also allowed those players half a season to bed in and get acclimated to the pace of the Premier League which knocks on to the reason they're cutting Potter some slack this season .

Secondly the fear that they would be outbid for players should United be sold as is likely to Qatari investors , leaving us in competition with them , City , Newcastle who have deeper pockets.

Thirdly, we desperately needed some players for certain positions including CB, RWB, CM and wingers. We were all screaming out for them.  

If what we have suddenly start clicking and scoring goals we won't care about CF. 

[Bison]

@Thiago97 I agree, instead of implementing those things and the new recruitment team around a proven manager in Tuchel they went scorched earth policy.

@Mark Kelly Brighton got better because they kept finding and signing better players. Houghton was not working with the likes of Caicedo and world cup winning midfielders like Mac Allister. And now another manager has taken them even further than Potter ever did.

[Mark Kelly]

11 minutes ago, Bison said:

@Thiago97 I agree, instead of implementing those things and the new recruitment team around a proven manager in Tuchel they went scorched earth policy.

@Mark Kelly Brighton got better because they kept finding and signing better players. Houghton was not working with the likes of Caicedo and world cup winning midfielders like Mac Allister. And now another manager has taken them even further than Potter ever did.

World cup winning MacAllister? 

The man who claimed that he hated Potter for chopping and changing his position but realised it had made him a better player.

I'm not claiming Potter is a great manager but he definitely has some good will in the bank regarding improving players.

Potter put MacAllister on the map.

[Trini_Blue]

De Zerbi, for me, is enjoying the hardwork done by Brighton and Potter over the last couple years. We see a lot of coaches take over and do well/ok enough in the first year but the real marker is what happens after they get time and resources and you generally see that from the second year onwards. 

I'm cold on Potter at the moment, but you simply have to recognize that the work he did at Brighton was good/great. He improved them. His work didn't lead to a decline. 

If Potter was at Brighton right now, and the owners gave Tuchel more time for his reign to unravel, I think a lot of Chelsea fans would think differently right now about Potter.

The problem was that Boehly got rid of Tuchel too soon. Tuchel's time here had started to turn sour but it wasn't quite sour yet. And then they hired Potter who's a slow burn. Fans aren't going to want to give him the time to have any long term improvement. 

If Tuchel could have worked as part of a team then he could have been ideal because even at PSG his methods eventually begin to wane. You need to constantly refresh the squad under a manager like that with new players to keep things at a decent level. 

[ROTG]

4 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

6 hours ago, Ham said:

I do think the players have been largely solid purchases, but many seem to have bought to throw money at Potter and buy him out of the hole he is in. Why have we spent so much at once, in January? To paper over the cracks - so Potter simply cannot lose with a squad this good.

So how many of the January purchases would walk into Chitty, The Arse, ManUre’s, Dippers first team?

[Thiago97]

18 minutes ago, Trini_Blue said:

De Zerbi, for me, is enjoying the hardwork done by Brighton and Potter over the last couple years. We see a lot of coaches take over and do well/ok enough in the first year but the real marker is what happens after they get time and resources and you generally see that from the second year onwards. 

I'm cold on Potter at the moment, but you simply have to recognize that the work he did at Brighton was good/great. He improved them. His work didn't lead to a decline. 

If Potter was at Brighton right now, and the owners gave Tuchel more time for his reign to unravel, I think a lot of Chelsea fans would think differently right now about Potter.

The problem was that Boehly got rid of Tuchel too soon. Tuchel's time here had started to turn sour but it wasn't quite sour yet. And then they hired Potter who's a slow burn. Fans aren't going to want to give him the time to have any long term improvement. 

If Tuchel could have worked as part of a team then he could have been ideal because even at PSG his methods eventually begin to wane. You need to constantly refresh the squad under a manager like that with new players to keep things at a decent level. 

I’m pretty confident De Zerbi would agree with this. It don’t mean De Zerbi hasn’t added something to Brighton, cos they appear to have a more clinical edge and his teams have always been very creative.

He took over the club on a positive trajectory and he has certainly benefited from this.

 

[Mark Kelly]

4 minutes ago, ROTG said:

So how many of the January purchases would walk into Chitty, The Arse, ManUre’s, Dippers first team?

It doesn't matter , they have all managed to walk into to our squad.

I wonder why that is?

[ROTG]

21 minutes ago, Trini_Blue said:

De Zerbi, for me, is enjoying the hardwork done by Brighton and Potter over the last couple years. We see a lot of coaches take over and do well/ok enough in the first year but the real marker is what happens after they get time and resources and you generally see that from the second year onwards. 

I'm cold on Potter at the moment, but you simply have to recognize that the work he did at Brighton was good/great. He improved them. His work didn't lead to a decline. 

If Potter was at Brighton right now, and the owners gave Tuchel more time for his reign to unravel, I think a lot of Chelsea fans would think differently right now about Potter.

The problem was that Boehly got rid of Tuchel too soon. Tuchel's time here had started to turn sour but it wasn't quite sour yet. And then they hired Potter who's a slow burn. Fans aren't going to want to give him the time to have any long term improvement. 

If Tuchel could have worked as part of a team then he could have been ideal because even at PSG his methods eventually begin to wane. You need to constantly refresh the squad under a manager like that with new players to keep things at a decent level. 

So at what point during the Team GP reign do we see the minimum of 75 pts in a season to qualify for the CL and +85 points to win the PL?

the most Team GP got is 49 pts and that took him 3 season to do better than Chris Houghton.