Blue Armour

We've managed to degrade Enzo in a few weeks. Not bad.

The players are more or less trying to get the boss out af this point. It's more evident than ever.

If we do raise our game here, hopefully it stays like that for a while. The opposite happened against Dortmund, where we played well, only to fall flat against the Saints. And this is a problem that's been there before Potter. Players seem to choose the games they want to turn up for., and are generally out of it in the league games when we are a. Not playing a big opponent or b. Out of the title race and/or top 4 contention.

Don't forget. Southampton came to Stamford Bridge with a Plan! Curse those machiavellian saints, scheming and foiling Potter's grand design.

Not using this as an excuse for Potter (since he wasn't in charge right after preseason), I'll admit that in general, looking at the past decade or so, we've gone on to have relatively poor seasons after really bad preseasons. At least going far back as Ancelloti and Mourinho mk2 In Ancellotis 2nd season we had a poor season, although we did recover really well late on to finish 2nd., so the standards for a 'bad season' were different then.

I think their shortfall in recent years has always been the manager. Let's be clear, they were never short on cash with the Glazers, especially because of the money they rake in from revenue. So I don't think the new owners are going to make a difference in that department. What remains to be seen is how they will run the club in general. How tolerant they are of poor results. What kind of footballing people will they install above the manager. Those are still questions that are up in the air. City had a plan. They tried to replicate the management structure that existed in Pep's Barcelona.

Moving Jorginho the way we did was always going to be problematic. He was vice captain and generally well liked in the team. And a bit of an odd choice, considering that we have loads of wingers, and very few CMs.

Rio and Hargreaves are suggesting that Chelsea give Lukaku another chance. 🤣 Such reactionary pundits.

It doesn't look good and most likely isn't behind the scenes, but I feel this clip is reading too much into it. Plus, they had a big team huddle right before kick off on Saturday God knows what they were discussing, though. Maybe they were talking about screwing up just to offload Potter. EdIt: but yes, miss when we used to have 5 international team captains on the pitch playing for us. Drogba., Terry., Ballack, Essien., Carvalho, Lampard.

Are you serious about the club being without CL for years? One year - fine. I've also admitted that Chelsea has been through boom and bust and boom cycles before. It's always a risk with 6 (and now 7) clubs fighting for top 4. Any longer, and it's going to be a disaster financially. We also risk losing players like James., who will be courted by more successful clubs. Since you have compared us with Arsenal before, Arsenal of the past decade is what we'll become if we keep going on this path., and I'll say bollocks to that. Who wants to go through decades of mediocrity and lose all our best players to other clubs, and for what? For a one in a million season that Arteta is having currently? For every Arteta, there are many more Ole's and Moyes type stories. And bear in mind, Chelsea isn't a club that was struggling for top 4. It needs a little surgery, not a resurrection. What is it that justifies taking the club several steps backwards? I can understand supporting Potter and giving him time, but there should be levels to this.

He was allegedly taking English lessons towards the end of his Madrid career. Could mean nothing, since this was when he was linked with the United job. The press could've been on overdrive

Only now coming across some of these stats from his Brighton days. Makes for scary reading. 2020 calendar year: A single home win. 23rd Sep - 26th Dec - Zero wins January 2022 - April 2022 -Zero goals at home

Exactly, he has no leverage at the moment. That's why it's best that both parties just drop talks for the time being. I'm not going to discount Liverpool bidding for him. There have been many rumors circulating around Mount with only one club's name (Pool) actually being mentioned. This is a little similar to Rudiger & Madrid, with how the rumors broke out., even if there were more obvious clues there. Them paying top price for Bellingham is not a certainty.

I think Matt Law is no longer as well informed about Chelsea as he used to be.

Basically what happened to Arsenal towards the end of the Wenger era. But even that was 10 times better than this. They at least made top 4 regularly. Mourinho's "specialist in failure" quote ringing true.

Apparently 3 times his current 80k pw wages. Bit unfortunate for him that he has to negotiate for this when his form is the poorest it has ever been.

The poor performances are largely down to him , even if the manager and team are not doing any favors. But I believe we'll regret it if he does move to another top club, esp. Liverpool. I'm sure that under an elite manager like Klopp he will raise his game and this will haunt us for years. Personally I just hope the club and Mount ride out the coming months, and come back with fresh minds next season. Wishful thinking, but with Potter getting this much time to adjust, why not give some of the players more time.

Fully agree with this. I've tried defending him in the past few months, but his head is clearly not in it. And yesterday he made things more difficult for the rest of the team by barely being involved. I don't know if it's the contract standoff or the manager or a combination of things involving his personal life, but I would expect a bit more when you're playing at home in front of fans that have unfurled a colossal banner in support. It's a shame. Of all the 3 homegrown midfielders we have, Mount would be first pick but he's not making things easy for anyone. Probably needs a Mourinho type manager to light a fire under him, but that's not happening anytime soon.

Never knew we did that RDM, but makes sense considering that AVB also removed that same year.

If these figures are correct, then it would explain why moving to another manager would be difficult. Especially this season. "We paid a release clause for Graham Potter to get him out of Brighton. (£22m) then gave him (£12m) per year, (£60m) in total to make him one of the highest paid managers. Why? Would he have rejected £8/9m? All his staff’s wages/clauses. Speechless situation."

Funny how all it took was a win against Everton for them to come surging back. The fact that Potter thought it was okay to rotate heavily again when we've only had 3 wins since October, is laughable. These kind of results not only destroy the teams confidence, but also could reduce their faith in him. And this is a problem because we have a whole bunch of new players too. It's not like you can pin the blame on the old lot, and say they'll be moved on anyway.

And to add to my comment about him not giving proper instructions to the players on what to do off the ball - In the first 15 mins of the game our front 3 were mostly standing several feet away from the Saints back 4, easily giving them time to play out from the back (the opposite of what they did to us). It took us another 20 minutes before DDF, Mount and Madueke started doing the same. Maybe he occasionally does have the right ideas - but what's the point if you can't execute? Are we going to keep spending time and money changing players till we get him a first 11 that fully understands his intentions?

He definitely did some of the things we wanted in the lineup. He moved to a 4 man defense too. But being a good manager is more than just selecting a starting 11 or changing the formation. There are levels to everything. The players that played yesterday seemed unaware of what their roles were, especially off the ball. Granted that Southampton changing their manager right before this game could have thrown people off., but you shouldn't let the bottom team in the league come and dictate your play at home. Anyway - this season is lost. I don't think there's anyone out there that is exciting enough, who would join. We should have just kept Tuchel. I'm more interested in his last comments, about this whole thing not being his fault. Who's fault is it then, Potter?

Graham Potter defends goal-shy Chelsea's failure to sign a proven hitman as embattled boss points out buying a big-money striker like Romelu Lukaku 'didn't fix the problem' previously at Stamford Bridge https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11764595/Graham-Potter-defends-Chelseas-failure-sign-proven-goalscorer.html This on the other hand, is exactly the kind of stuff I want to hear from Potter. Our tactics and need for a no.9 He has rightly pointed out that City won the league without a recognized no.9 . So did we in the CL 2021. All fair points.

I just hope he isn't spouting the same stuff in the dressing room. Imagine a player gets wrongfully red carded. Is he going to tell then to 'chin up & move on?'. Hopefully he's got it right and it works well.