Graham Potter Thread

[Fernando 6,463]

I'm fine with him getting a free pass. 

I remember arsenal with arteta was very bad. But the club back him and now doing well. 

I'm sure the owners are aware of this and because of that they will give this season a pass and next season about the same. 

[robsblubot 3,504]

The thing is that even when Arsenal wasn't quite competitive under Arteta, I knew what he was trying to do. I also knew that if successful, that style (very much Pep's) is really effective in long championships (not so much in cups).

I honestly don't see the goal line just yet. Watched Brighton and they never caught my attention; yes, organized and intense team, like I've seen many others. At this point, I can only hope that the leadership detected something in his work and is betting on it.

Not his fault Auba is his only striker option tho. What a joke of a signing.... one of the most predictable flops.

[Hashishi 148]

30 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

The thing is that even when Arsenal wasn't quite competitive under Arteta, I knew what he was trying to do. I also knew that if successful, that style (very much Pep's) is really effective in long championships (not so much in cups).

I honestly don't see the goal line just yet. Watched Brighton and they never caught my attention; yes, organized and intense team, like I've seen many others. At this point, I can only hope that the leadership detected something in his work and is betting on it.

Not his fault Auba is his only striker option tho. What a joke of a signing.... one of the most predictable flops.

Never caught my eye either. Individual players like Cucurella and Trossard caught my eye but definitely not because of their style of play. For an ownership that is data driven, i dont know who looks at these stats and thinks this is the best manager availible. We are going to be looking for a new manager next october once the ownership sees results not picking up. 

Tuchel inherited a bad squad from Lamps but still managed to turn it around. He is at fault for us signing Sterling and Auba but to be fair to him, we didnt have a transfer department for him to lean on. That is the only thing the board has improved.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Hashishi

[Vegetable 830]

The only thing Potter has in common with Arteta is his team struggling, yet people are using Arsenal to excuse Potter appointment. Completely different circumstances and completely different man. 

[Jype 6,398]

3 hours ago, robsblubot said:

The thing is that even when Arsenal wasn't quite competitive under Arteta, I knew what he was trying to do. I also knew that if successful, that style (very much Pep's) is really effective in long championships (not so much in cups).

I honestly don't see the goal line just yet. Watched Brighton and they never caught my attention; yes, organized and intense team, like I've seen many others. At this point, I can only hope that the leadership detected something in his work and is betting on it.

Not his fault Auba is his only striker option tho. What a joke of a signing.... one of the most predictable flops.

Potter's Brighton were a really well coached team though.

Especially in the 2020/21 season when they finished 16th their underlying metrics were actually quite good. For example:

• xG - 10th (not great but still better than the 15th in actual goals scored)
• xGA - 3rd (gave away very few good scoring chances to the opposition)
• xPTS - 5th
• Passes completed within 20 yards of opposition goal - 5th
• Opposition passes allowed within 20 yards of own goal - 6th

For a team to play like that and then finish 16th in the league was an absolute travesty. In the 2021/22 season they placed roughly the same in all the above mentioned stats across the EPL and finished 9th so things were clearly starting to click a little bit better on the actual score sheets as well.

I'm pretty sure last season Brighton's record against the top-6 clubs (3W, 4D, 5L) was also the best out of anyone not in the top-6 so for a midtable club they were quite decent against the big teams. And the results weren't flukes either, they played some really good football in a lot of those games.

[Superblue 6,370]

6 hours ago, robsblubot said:

The thing is that even when Arsenal wasn't quite competitive under Arteta, I knew what he was trying to do. I also knew that if successful, that style (very much Pep's) is really effective in long championships (not so much in cups).

I honestly don't see the goal line just yet. Watched Brighton and they never caught my attention; yes, organized and intense team, like I've seen many others. At this point, I can only hope that the leadership detected something in his work and is betting on it.

Not his fault Auba is his only striker option tho. What a joke of a signing.... one of the most predictable flops.

I think there's a bit of recency bias with Arteta now. Besides that FA Cup win early on, for about 18 months they played some real poor stuff. They didn't create a lot, looked vulnerable at the back despite playing in a more defensive way, would be regularly dominated possession wise. Given Arsenal in recent times have always been able to fall back on their style of play being easy on the eye under Wenger, I can remember a lot of people complaining about what Arteta was doing. There were times he genuinely looked clueless early on.

I think the least Potter does deserve is the opportunity to fix some of the issues in this squad and what does give me some confidence that it can be turned around is that seemingly his priority is in central midfield which should have been a priority position for the last couple of years.

[Mhsc 876]

4 minutes ago, Superblue said:

I think there's a bit of recency bias with Arteta now. Besides that FA Cup win early on, for about 18 months they played some real poor stuff. They didn't create a lot, looked vulnerable at the back despite playing in a more defensive way, would be regularly dominated possession wise. Given Arsenal in recent times have always been able to fall back on their style of play being easy on the eye under Wenger, I can remember a lot of people complaining about what Arteta was doing. There were times he genuinely looked clueless early on.

I think the least Potter does deserve is the opportunity to fix some of the issues in this squad and what does give me some confidence that it can be turned around is that seemingly his priority is in central midfield which should have been a priority position for the last couple of years.

100%. People have totally forgotten that people thought Arteta was a joke for ages, now looks like one of the most promising manager's in the league again. People even turned on Pep and Klopp in their early days in the PL. Football fans and media are very short sighted, as football is a lot about instant gratification of the current or next game. However, we see time and again that the best long term successful manager's have difficult starts and eventually come good. A lot of instantly good managers are good for 1-2 years before losing their job, not just at our club but at many others.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Mhsc

[Superblue 6,370]

1 minute ago, Mhsc said:

100%. People have totally forgotten that people thought Arteta was a joke for ages, now looks like one of the most promising manager's in the league again. People even turned on Pep and Klopp in their early days in the PL. Football fans and media are very short sighted, as football is a lot about instant gratification of the current or next game. However, we see time and again that the best long term successful manager's have difficult starts and eventually come good. A lot of instantly good managers are good for 1-2 years before losing their job, not just at our club but at many others.

I'm not comparing Potter in any way, but it's well documented that Fergie was a game or two away from the sack at United and it took him 3 or 4 years to win a trophy and 5 or 6 years to win the league. This being one of the most iconic managers in history, certainly on these shores.

The biggest problem is Chelsea fans are used to immediate now, and it can't be helped. I started supporting Chelsea in the early 90's when we were crap, but it can be hard to revert back to a calmer, more patient mindset when we've enjoyed 20 years of unparalleled success in the most chaotic manner.

Whilst the new ownership clearly have Chelsea as an investment, I don't for one minute see them viewing us as a cash cow. With what they have invested, it is vital that they build on the club's stature in football and grow it further. In order to do that, we still must be one of the biggest clubs competing for trophies. I am pleased with some of the steps they have made with regards to some of the non football appointments, they do look like they're identifying weaknesses in the chain at the club and trying to bring people in that will benefit the long term future of this club. It is likely to be a slower process than the boom and bust nature of Roman's reign, but when it isn't just simply a hobby, decisions being made become more critical and analysed in more detail, and hopefully it means we're putting in place things to ensure a lot of those decisions in the future are made better than a number of bad decisions made in Roman's reign.

[lucio 5,418]

18 hours ago, YorkshireBlue said:

Seems a few of you are going to have to get used to the new ways round here, no more hire and fire at will, I for one am happy with that, we will lose some fans to man city and others for the next few years for sure, the abramovich fans I call them.

We will all have to get used to the new ways of not winning anything then, if this amateur is in charge long term 

[NikkiCFC 7,953]

1 hour ago, Mhsc said:

100%. People have totally forgotten that people thought Arteta was a joke for ages, now looks like one of the most promising manager's in the league again. People even turned on Pep and Klopp in their early days in the PL. Football fans and media are very short sighted, as football is a lot about instant gratification of the current or next game. However, we see time and again that the best long term successful manager's have difficult starts and eventually come good. 

When Lamps was here, Ole at United and Arteta in Arsenal I remember saying he is not in category with those two. With him you could see there is something long term. With Ole and Lamps no chance. It was clear waste of time. I will give more time to Potter but he is not far away from being in that category for me. 

 

Regarding Pep and Klopp have they been successful really? Klopp is in his 8th season with Liverpool and have one PL (same as Leicester in this period and us and maybe Arsenal soon). One CL also from major silverware. He definitely improved them a lot but one PL and one CL doesn't screem big success to me. 

Guardiola also... Mancini and Pellegrini both won PL before him with weaker side. He came, spend over a billion and never got CL. They are always number one favourite to win title. So 4 out of 7 (assuming Ars takes it this season) is not so impressive. In CL total failure every time and this is their biggest goal and main reason why he is there. Getting knocked out by teams like Monaco, Lyon. And Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea who all fought for top4 at the time they eliminated City in CL. And total collapse against Real last season as well. Don't forget Bayern won CL before him and after him. Not with him. If City replaced him 2,3 years ago maybe they would have it by now. This season for example according to bookmakers they are clear favourites. On one euro you get 2.80 for City win. First after them is with 8.00. So him not winning both CL and PL this season is huge failure worth sacking. 

United didn't really have competition in 90s. One team at best. In major European competition he participated 25 times with United and won it twice. Thanks to Terry slip and 2 late goals against Bayern in 99.

So my conclusion is that no manager is perfect or even close to it. They all fail more than succeed. Carlo is also among the best and we wondered why we sacked him after finishing 1st and 2nd in PL but he didn't come close to CL in those 2 seasons. Very soon after that we won it so it was worth it. Nothing suggests long term manager is better choice. 

Edited January 3, 2023 by NikkiCFC

[DDA 9,690]

It doesn't matter how hard we debate this..... we will not see any difference in the way we play under Potter or anyone until the squad is rid of the deadwood mercenaries and proper hungry, ambitious players and brought in who will respect the ideas Potter's or whoever the manger is.

 

 

 

The squad is riddled with incompetence. There not a manager in The World who could make this squad what all Chelsea fans want it to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Superblue 6,370]

56 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

When Lamps was here, Ole at United and Arteta in Arsenal I remember saying he is not in category with those two. With him you could see there is something long term. With Ole and Lamps no chance. It was clear waste of time. I will give more time to Potter but he is not far away from being in that category for me. 

 

Regarding Pep and Klopp have they been successful really? Klopp is in his 8th season with Liverpool and have one PL (same as Leicester in this period and us and maybe Arsenal soon). One CL also from major silverware. He definitely improved them a lot but one PL and one CL doesn't screem big success to me. 

Guardiola also... Mancini and Pellegrini both won PL before him with weaker side. He came, spend over a billion and never got CL. They are always number one favourite to win title. So 4 out of 7 (assuming Ars takes it this season) is not so impressive. In CL total failure every time and this is their biggest goal and main reason why he is there. Getting knocked out by teams like Monaco, Lyon. And Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea who all fought for top4 at the time they eliminated City in CL. And total collapse against Real last season as well. Don't forget Bayern won CL before him and after him. Not with him. If City replaced him 2,3 years ago maybe they would have it by now. This season for example according to bookmakers they are clear favourites. On one euro you get 2.80 for City win. First after them is with 8.00. So him not winning both CL and PL this season is huge failure worth sacking. 

United didn't really have competition in 90s. One team at best. In major European competition he participated 25 times with United and won it twice. Thanks to Terry slip and 2 late goals against Bayern in 99.

So my conclusion is that no manager is perfect or even close to it. They all fail more than succeed. Carlo is also among the best and we wondered why we sacked him after finishing 1st and 2nd in PL but he didn't come close to CL in those 2 seasons. Very soon after that we won it so it was worth it. Nothing suggests long term manager is better choice. 

In the case though of Klopp and Pep, there is a huge difference between them building sides that go deep in multiple competitions every season compared to what we have had in this same period which was lighting in a bottle first year with Conte and first 6 months with Tuchel and besides that a squad capable on their day but inconsistent and ultimately not good enough for the full season grind.

It might well be that Potter is the facilitator for someone better to take us on, in a similar way to what happened with Ranieri and Mourinho and to a lesser extent Lampard and Tuchel. But either way, we cannot continue to just sack managers left, right and centre and allow a number of squad players to get fresh starts every 6-12 months. It's the reason why we're left now with such an unbalanced squad with a number of players that are good on their day, but not really good enough for where we should want to be.

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

4 hours ago, lucio said:

We will all have to get used to the new ways of not winning anything then, if this amateur is in charge long term 

All those years of success as lead to this point right here, this was always going to come regardless of owner, blame potter all you want, this is much much more than a manager 

[robsblubot 3,504]

7 hours ago, Jype said:

Potter's Brighton were a really well coached team though.

Especially in the 2020/21 season when they finished 16th their underlying metrics were actually quite good. For example:

• xG - 10th (not great but still better than the 15th in actual goals scored)
• xGA - 3rd (gave away very few good scoring chances to the opposition)
• xPTS - 5th
• Passes completed within 20 yards of opposition goal - 5th
• Opposition passes allowed within 20 yards of own goal - 6th

For a team to play like that and then finish 16th in the league was an absolute travesty. In the 2021/22 season they placed roughly the same in all the above mentioned stats across the EPL and finished 9th so things were clearly starting to click a little bit better on the actual score sheets as well.

I'm pretty sure last season Brighton's record against the top-6 clubs (3W, 4D, 5L) was also the best out of anyone not in the top-6 so for a midtable club they were quite decent against the big teams. And the results weren't flukes either, they played some really good football in a lot of those games.

I'm not as interested in results actually. When you make that jump, the most important aspect is level, and esp style, of play IMO. What worked at Brighton is likely not going to work for a big club. e.g. giving the ball to the opposition and counter (not saying that's all they did).

6 hours ago, Superblue said:

I think there's a bit of recency bias with Arteta now. Besides that FA Cup win early on, for about 18 months they played some real poor stuff. They didn't create a lot, looked vulnerable at the back despite playing in a more defensive way, would be regularly dominated possession wise. Given Arsenal in recent times have always been able to fall back on their style of play being easy on the eye under Wenger, I can remember a lot of people complaining about what Arteta was doing. There were times he genuinely looked clueless early on.

I think the least Potter does deserve is the opportunity to fix some of the issues in this squad and what does give me some confidence that it can be turned around is that seemingly his priority is in central midfield which should have been a priority position for the last couple of years.

yeah, I will have to disagree. Speaking for myself once again, I did see what Arteta was trying to do and it was fairly obvious from the get go (knowing his background). He did have deadwood and players who simply could not do what was required--Aubameyang was one of them--but I could see the intent. It's not about the result, or even the level of play initially, but intent.

I don't yet see the intent in Potter's work at Chelsea and as I wrote above, I'm not sure how much of what he did at Brighton would be immediately applicable at Chelsea.

On the other hand, I was one of the few here who thought our transfer window business was a disaster. I did not like a single signing: did not even think Sterling was a big improvement over Werner. For this reason, I do have to cut him some slack, but his formation and strategy are making things worse because he simply does not have the players for it, IMO of course. Zakaria, for example, is really struggling with the pace of the league.

Edited January 3, 2023 by robsblubot

[Jype 6,398]

26 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

I'm not as interested in results actually. When you make that jump, the most important aspect is level, and esp style, of play IMO. What worked at Brighton is likely not going to work for a big club. e.g. giving the ball to the opposition and counter (not saying that's all they did).

The bit about the results in the big games was at most a side note in my post. I provided you with lots of team statistics to prove they were quite consistently playing good/great football over two full seasons but conveniently you ignored them all because they went against your narrative.

If you take a second to re-visit the statistics I listed on my previous post, you'd see that Brighton had a very high amount of passes in the final third and allowed the opposition to complete very few passes in their defensive areas. Same goes for touches inside the opposition penalty box (6th most) and opposition touches inside their own box (5th least). All that pretty much confirms that despite their lowly position in the league table they were consistently outplaying the opposition teams and controlling the game in midfield and the final third, which is probably the furthest away from playing the kind of football you claim they did.

If you reduce Potter's Brighton to have played 'give away the ball and counter attack' football then you obviously either didn't watch them or just didn't understand what was happening right in front of your own eyes. If anything, Brighton with Potter more often than not aimed to play exactly the type of football the top clubs 'should' play and in that regard they were pulling well above their weight when considering their overall squad quality and resources of the club. 

People now saying how they always knew Arteta was destined to the very top from watching Arsenal trying to figure things out and then at the same time saying they never saw Brighon's football as anything other than lower mid table play now that he's struggling with Chelsea is revisionist history at its finest.

It's true things haven't worked out in the slightest for him at Chelsea so far but at the same time the criticisim is going way over the top.

[Vegetable 830]

Where this is even going, Brighton played "good football" and finished 16th (lol), how is it supposed to reassure Chelsea fans Potter is the man for the job? When Sarri was at helm, we've had 99% possesion and million passes (mostly vertical!) done, yet people would not stop bashing him for lack of end result. 

I think, after all, points and silverware are more satisfying than xG and this whole "style" debacle is useless - let's start winning and most people will stop whining about backpasses at once.

[Jype 6,398]

29 minutes ago, Vegetable said:

Where this is even going, Brighton played "good football" and finished 16th (lol), how is it supposed to reassure Chelsea fans Potter is the man for the job? When Sarri was at helm, we've had 99% possesion and million passes (mostly vertical!) done, yet people would not stop bashing him for lack of end result. 

The guy I was replying to literally just said he didn't even care about the results and for him the most important aspect was the playing style, so I provided him with some statistics and an insight to how they actually played. I personally couldn't give less fucks whether you or some other fans of the club are reassured about Potter or not. What matters is that, at least for now, the people running the club seem very much reassured. 

Lately I've had my fair share of concerns about Potter as well, and I'm not really seeing him having implemented anything new to the team's play that wasn't already there. Whether that will change in the coming months or going into next season remains to be seen. It took a while for his Brighton team to get fully going with how he wanted them to play and it's not like we haven't had our fair share of other problems in the team as well like for example the James, Chilwell, Fofana, Kante etc. injuries and having no a deadwood like Auba for a striker. Because of all that, I for one am trying to refrain from being overly critical of Potter right now but obviously things need to change for the better very soon.

And btw, the football under Sarri was terrible. So much possession for so very little chance creation. The only reason it worked even reasonably well was that we still had a prime-Hazard to bail us out with some great individual brilliance. Replace 2018 Hazard in that squad with a current day Pulisic and under Sarri that team would have struggled to score 40 goals in the league over the season.

 

29 minutes ago, Vegetable said:

I think, after all, points and silverware are more satisfying than xG and this whole "style" debacle is useless - let's start winning and most people will stop whining about backpasses at once.

See that's where you're clearly wrong. Certain people who love a good whining were always very vocal about the 'shit on a stick' football even when it was super effective and brought the club plenty of silverware under the likes of Mourinho and Conte.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Jype

[robsblubot 3,504]

2 hours ago, Jype said:

The bit about the results in the big games was at most a side note in my post. I provided you with lots of team statistics to prove they were quite consistently playing good/great football over two full seasons but conveniently you ignored them all because they went against your narrative.

If you take a second to re-visit the statistics I listed on my previous post, you'd see that Brighton had a very high amount of passes in the final third and allowed the opposition to complete very few passes in their defensive areas. Same goes for touches inside the opposition penalty box (6th most) and opposition touches inside their own box (5th least). All that pretty much confirms that despite their lowly position in the league table they were consistently outplaying the opposition teams and controlling the game in midfield and the final third, which is probably the furthest away from playing the kind of football you claim they did.

If you reduce Potter's Brighton to have played 'give away the ball and counter attack' football then you obviously either didn't watch them or just didn't understand what was happening right in front of your own eyes. If anything, Brighton with Potter more often than not aimed to play exactly the type of football the top clubs 'should' play and in that regard they were pulling well above their weight when considering their overall squad quality and resources of the club. 

People now saying how they always knew Arteta was destined to the very top from watching Arsenal trying to figure things out and then at the same time saying they never saw Brighon's football as anything other than lower mid table play now that he's struggling with Chelsea is revisionist history at its finest.

It's true things haven't worked out in the slightest for him at Chelsea so far but at the same time the criticisim is going way over the top.

That makes two of us conveniently ignoring each other's points. 😉