Graham Potter Thread

[Superblue 6,372]

3 hours ago, DDA said:

If Pep had not managed in the Prem before this very day abd you offered him a £50m contract for 2 years, he would still turn it down.

This squad is pathetic. 

GP needs time abs alot of it. We need to see what he can do with clever buys in the market.

I actually think missing out on top 4 this season might do us a favour in a weird way.

We have been top 4 for years and what players have we really attracted??? 

The Lukakus and Havertz!!

Total dross.

We need technical players who can buy into an attacking way of football.

If you guys think GP can wade in and turn us into prime City... you're obviously deluded.

What I will say is though, GP needs to drop the dross and play the kids... not all of them but get Gallagher in that midfield as a starter, he brings soo much energy and desire which both are severely lacking in this starting 11.

Give Broja a run of games and try to improve his positioning.

Use Zakaria every fucking game to add some defensive stability.

Bring Omari Hutchinson to the fold. See what he can do. 

Drop RLC. Drop Auba and anyone else who thinks it's OK to perform on what can only be described as a dogshit standard. 

Agree on the statement regarding technical players being recruited.

I don't agree currently on Gallagher and Broja though. Gallagher, for me, does have qualities but he's average on a technical level at this stage of his career. Broja similarly does not currently possess the awareness around him and is still very raw. They should both be involved within the squad and I think the minutes that Broja is getting will be to his benefit (he's involved in most games) long term.

Zakaria I would agree with. We don't know his 'level' currently because with the greatest respect to Zagreb, they're not exactly the biggest test case but until he's given a chance in the Premier League we're not going to know. He was excellent in midweek and should be high in confidence, unlike a number of players. His profile should give us a greater defensive stability and a mobile, physical presence in midfield. Given the struggles we have in midfield under different combinations, I would also be looking to play him regularly currently.

Agree too on Hutchinson. It's clear that Potter isn't keen on Ziyech and hardly uses him and this is someone who had one foot out of the door in the summer. A young player like that on the bench could provide an injection of 'something'. I really hope we see a couple of them potentially involved in mid-week against City.

[DDA 9,924]

5 hours ago, Superblue said:

Agree on the statement regarding technical players being recruited.

I don't agree currently on Gallagher and Broja though. Gallagher, for me, does have qualities but he's average on a technical level at this stage of his career. Broja similarly does not currently possess the awareness around him and is still very raw. They should both be involved within the squad and I think the minutes that Broja is getting will be to his benefit (he's involved in most games) long term.

Zakaria I would agree with. We don't know his 'level' currently because with the greatest respect to Zagreb, they're not exactly the biggest test case but until he's given a chance in the Premier League we're not going to know. He was excellent in midweek and should be high in confidence, unlike a number of players. His profile should give us a greater defensive stability and a mobile, physical presence in midfield. Given the struggles we have in midfield under different combinations, I would also be looking to play him regularly currently.

Agree too on Hutchinson. It's clear that Potter isn't keen on Ziyech and hardly uses him and this is someone who had one foot out of the door in the summer. A young player like that on the bench could provide an injection of 'something'. I really hope we see a couple of them potentially involved in mid-week against City.

Broja is looking raw but I honestly think he could offer more than what Auba has in the last few games. 

Gallagher isn't Paul Scholes by any means but he plays for the badge... you can see he is determined to win us over and that is far more than what can be said about the current crop of donkeys who start week in and week out.

The time for a rebuild is now and if truth be told we just don't have the necessary quality to improve this team to the level we want it at. That will take time and transfers so why not field hungry young players with a point to prove. 

[Johnnyeye 7,501]

10 hours ago, Tomo said:

if it's going to be Rafa Benitez naked I'll confiscate his brush and get him blacklisted.

 

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Laylabelle 9,534]

7 hours ago, Superblue said:

It's far too early to make this assumption. Whilst I agree it's going to be extremely difficult if we continue at our current rate, there is still nearly 2/3 of the season to play. 

It doesn't look likely currently, but if we were to beat Newcastle next week then we're only 3 points behind them and can be within 2 points of Spurs if we win our game in hand. Newcastle currently are riding a bit of a wave of momentum. Their result today flattered them, as Southampton beat them convincingly on all metrics besides putting the ball in the net. Newcastle were well under 1 expected goal, yet managed to score 4. It's what can usually happen when you have a confident team, things seem to flow your way.

Whilst we can all have a moan and complain about the quality and ability within our squad, when put up and compared to the likes of Spurs and Newcastle, and even United, I would prefer our squad to each of theirs. It's up to the players and manager to get things going.

Thint is as lovely as having the game in hand seems it seems hard to see where it'll take us until we know when it's to be played.. unless we know. Time we play it we could he further behind others going into it or closer who knows..hopefully closer!

That's the thing the team have the qualify and ability.. just not the game play to get results done

[Cosmin 2,484]

Remember when we used to despise international breaks? Nowadays it seems that they all can not come soon enough for Chelsea. What makes things worse is that we will basically have all of our players in Qatar for the World Cup. 

[chelsea_4_eva 1,180]

I feel he should give Broja more game time. I mean, we are not challenging for the league, so we can afford a little bit of inexperience up top, better than what we are doing now. With Broja playing a more important role in the squad, I feel we should have enough for top 4. Use this season to build chemistry up top with players that are probably still going to be here next season, I just don't see why GP is admant on playing Auba, he is not the long term solution.

[Special Juan 28,091]

Broja won't be anywhere worse than Havertz, but the golden German gets free pass after free pass.

[Trueblue9877 6]

We shouldn't have sacked Thomas Tuchel, he was our Phil Jackson and we let him go smh.

[Blues11 213]

38 minutes ago, Trueblue9877 said:

We shouldn't have sacked Thomas Tuchel, he was our Phil Jackson and we let him go smh.

We were bad under Tuchel too. It's like everyone forgot but it wasn't just this season, we were really poor the second half of last season also.

The roster needs to be revamped starting with the midfield. Let's not forget Tuchel was the one who badly wanted Cucurella and Fofana coming off a major injury. 

Club needs an elite sporting director to actually address our most glaring needs instead of overpaying for wingbacks and older players

[OneMoSalah 8,883]

On 08/11/2022 at 00:07, Blues11 said:

We were bad under Tuchel too. It's like everyone forgot but it wasn't just this season, we were really poor the second half of last season also.

The roster needs to be revamped starting with the midfield. Let's not forget Tuchel was the one who badly wanted Cucurella and Fofana coming off a major injury. 

Club needs an elite sporting director to actually address our most glaring needs instead of overpaying for wingbacks and older players

We were bad under Tuchel for a while yes but you’d think he had some credit in the bank no? To turn it around? 6 cup finals, 3 trophies in 2 years more or less. And even more so considering he was given £250m worth of new players.

I mean I wish people would just stop saying ‘people seem to forget we were bad under Tuchel’ to try and make Graham Potter look a better choice. I mean this is based on what? Getting promoted in Sweden 3 times? Achieving a 9th place finish with Brighton and then another good 7 or 8 weeks the following season? I mean his credentials are underwhelming compared to everyone we have had in the Roman era bar Lampard. I mean we were bad under Conte after winning the premier league and we were bad under Jose after winning the premier league - does that necessarily mean Conte and Jose are bad managers? Or that Tuchel is because of 10 month period where people also deliberately tend to FORGET in it that he had to deal with the:

1) Lukaku situation from that interview 

2) the will it happen, wont it happen sale circus 

3) Roman questions and everything surrounding the links to Putin

4)the other Ukraine-Russia questions because of the above

I mean cmon. Use your head. Its easy to say we were bad but it would be a bad time for any manager in the world to be in charge of us. Yet alone someone who set the bar so high in his first 6 months. I mean there was all sorts going on.

I am 90% sure we would still be making top 4 with Tuchel in charge this season, even based on the last 10 months or so of performances here as opposed to now with Graham Potter. That is my honest opinion.

I mean GP can maybe get things moving in the other way again, he’s shown he’s a half decent manager with Brighton but doing a half decent job here isn’t necessarily going to cut it - particularly if we don't make top 4 this season. Even more so considering he looks a bit out of his depth. 

I think by the time we go to play Dortmund, if we aren’t in the running for top 4 or 5, it will have been a catastrophic mistake. 

Edited November 10, 2022 by OneMoSalah

[Blue Armour 4,436]

16 minutes ago, OneMoSalah said:

We were bad under Tuchel for a while yes but you’d think he had some credit in the bank no? To turn it around? 6 cup finals, 3 trophies in 2 years more or less. And even more so considering he was given £250m worth of new players.

I mean I wish people would just stop saying ‘people seem to forget we were bad under Tuchel’ to try and make Graham Potter look a better choice. I mean this is based on what? Getting promoted in Sweden 3 times? Achieving a 9th place finish with Brighton and then another good 7 or 8 weeks the following season? I mean his credentials are underwhelming compared to everyone we have had in the Roman era bar Lampard. I mean we were bad under Conte after winning the premier league and we were bad under Jose after winning the premier league - does that necessarily mean Conte and Jose are bad managers? Or that Tuchel is because of 10 month period where people also deliberately tend to FORGET in it that he had to deal with the:

1) Lukaku situation from that interview 

2) the will it happen, wont it happen sale circus 

3) Roman questions and everything surrounding the links to Putin

4)the other Ukraine-Russia questions because of the above

I mean cmon. Use your head. Its easy to say we were bad but it would be a bad time for any manager in the world to be in charge of us. Yet alone someone who set the bar so high in his first 6 months. I mean there was all sorts going on.

I am 90% sure we would still be making top 4 with Tuchel in charge this season, even based on the last 10 months or so of performances here as opposed to now with Graham Potter. That is my honest opinion.

I mean GP can maybe get things moving in the other way again, he’s shown he’s a half decent manager with Brighton but doing a half decent job here isn’t necessarily going to cut it - particularly if we don't make top 4 this season. Even more so considering he looks a bit out of his depth. 

I think by the time we go to play Dortmund, if we aren’t in the running for top 4 or 5, it will have been a catastrophic mistake. 

What happened with Tuchel has nothing to do with his performance. 

It was more of a freak accident where he simply just didn't get along with the new regime (something he has also admitted recently, when he said that he wasn't in the right frame of mind at the time) and he was given the boot consequently.

If he got along better with the owners, he would still be here despite the lackluster start to the season.

[Fulham Broadway 17,299]

 I hoped that the new owners would get behind our managers, but they went down the toilet with they got rid of TT. I fully support GP because he is a young up and coming English a manger. We will lose at Newcastle as we pretty much always do and then hopefully our key injured players can get back after World Cup as they are not going - then the club can back GP and results get better

[Reddish-Blue 2,489]

3 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

We were bad under Tuchel for a while yes but you’d think he had some credit in the bank no? To turn it around? 6 cup finals, 3 trophies in 2 years more or less. And even more so considering he was given £250m worth of new players.

I mean I wish people would just stop saying ‘people seem to forget we were bad under Tuchel’ to try and make Graham Potter look a better choice. I mean this is based on what? Getting promoted in Sweden 3 times? Achieving a 9th place finish with Brighton and then another good 7 or 8 weeks the following season? I mean his credentials are underwhelming compared to everyone we have had in the Roman era bar Lampard. I mean we were bad under Conte after winning the premier league and we were bad under Jose after winning the premier league - does that necessarily mean Conte and Jose are bad managers? Or that Tuchel is because of 10 month period where people also deliberately tend to FORGET in it that he had to deal with the:

1) Lukaku situation from that interview 

2) the will it happen, wont it happen sale circus 

3) Roman questions and everything surrounding the links to Putin

4)the other Ukraine-Russia questions because of the above

I mean cmon. Use your head. Its easy to say we were bad but it would be a bad time for any manager in the world to be in charge of us. Yet alone someone who set the bar so high in his first 6 months. I mean there was all sorts going on.

I am 90% sure we would still be making top 4 with Tuchel in charge this season, even based on the last 10 months or so of performances here as opposed to now with Graham Potter. That is my honest opinion.

I mean GP can maybe get things moving in the other way again, he’s shown he’s a half decent manager with Brighton but doing a half decent job here isn’t necessarily going to cut it - particularly if we don't make top 4 this season. Even more so considering he looks a bit out of his depth. 

I think by the time we go to play Dortmund, if we aren’t in the running for top 4 or 5, it will have been a catastrophic mistake. 

That's the problem right there.   The two losses to Leeds & Southampton were major red flags as the players threw in the towel way too early in both games and looked like they had never played with their each other. 

As for all the other excuses, let's not forget that Tuchel agreed to the Lukaku transfer (like I highly doubt Marina and the club would sanction a 90+ million transfer of a player without getting the manager's approval).   

Tuchel didn't get along with the board, isn't the first time and won't be the last (Dortmund, PSG & now Chelsea).    There were stories and quotes from other managers saying that Tuchel was a bit of a control freak who wanted everything his way....and that sort of makes sense now as to why he was told to go from both PSG & Chelsea as you still have to listen to your owners.   

It's like someone getting a new manager at work, you don't immediately go into their office and say that they have bad ideas.  You try to get to know them, work with them and then see if it's worth sticking around or moving elsewhere. 

[ZAPHOD2319 4,799]

Potter is going to be here for the rebuilding of the squad.

 

[MoroccanBlue 5,375]

Good. 

Going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but there is light.