Graham Potter Thread

[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 3,595]

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. 😉 

[Blue Armour 4,436]

While I admit Potter is terrible atm, I still find it hard to think Arteta showed signs of quality, especially in his first two years.

I'll admit he was good in spells last season (especially after they got their injured players back), but his first 1-2 seasons at Arsenal looked terrible.

He took Unai Emerys already terrible team and made them perform worse, barring a couple of fluke cup wins (especially the one against us). And played some awful defensive football along the way. 

I could be mistaken., but that's just how I remember Arteta before last season.

[Strike 7,474]

9 hours 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. 

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.

Looking back - Sarri changed the way we played significantly by refreshing the midfield - Bakayoko, Fabregas left Jorginho and Kovacic walked in. This change had a big effect on our best performances even under Lampard and Tuchel - where the team was able to break the press of top teams like City, Madrid. I remember there was a 2-1 loss vs City under Lampard where the team looked extremely comfortable breaking City's feared pressing. Under Tuchel, we beat City thrice in a row in 21. Kante Jorgi and Kova all at their peak in that run. All this was partly due to the attention paid to "good football".

Our midfield signing after Jorgi/Kova if you ignore the Saul, Zakaria loans is going to be Enzo if we can get the deal over the line - It has been long overdue. I'd wait and give Potter time with the team they aim to build.

[Vesper 30,085]

"MILLIONS IN THE SHREDDER!" 😳 Andy Jacobs GOES IN HARD on Chelsea!

https://www.Chelsea-news.co/2023/01/video-ive-never-seen-a-team-more-dependent-on-one-player-chelseas-nightmare-2022-summed-up/

Chelsea’s season can be broken into two parts – the bits with Reece James and the bits without.

They have played well and won when he’s in the team, and struggled and lost without him.

That was the point they were making on TalkSport today, with Michael Calvin even claiming “I’ve never seen a team more dependent on one player.”

Well, we’ll be without him for a while again now, and there are no solutions on the horizon. Without Reece we can’t beat the weakest teams in the league – let alone Man City.

You can see their discussion in the clip embedded here:

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Vesper

[robsblubot 3,595]

1 hour ago, Blue Armour said:

While I admit Potter is terrible atm, I still find it hard to think Arteta showed signs of quality, especially in his first two years.

I'll admit he was good in spells last season (especially after they got their injured players back), but his first 1-2 seasons at Arsenal looked terrible.

He took Unai Emerys already terrible team and made them perform worse, barring a couple of fluke cup wins (especially the one against us). And played some awful defensive football along the way. 

I could be mistaken., but that's just how I remember Arteta before last season.

I did not either. That's why I've been banging on "intent."

you could see what he was trying to do from the get go: players would attempt a pass in dangerous positions conceding goals as result of that. He did not have the players to do that and tbf, it does take time to develop that style of play as it takes a lot of discipline and hard work. Player like Aubameyang simply do not fit in that system. They still depend on players doing their thing tho; they missed Jesus today I reckon... there was just some energy missing up front and newcastle are now a diffcult team to beat with Joellington and Guimaraes in the middle.

While folks have pointed to numbers and performances, I did not, and do not see, what the intent is with potter. Perhaps he's also imply lacking the players to implement his ideas, but I honestly do not know what they are... like specifically as I did Arteta's. BTW, I'm actually not a big fan of that system (Pep's and Ateta's) as I think it's extremely fragile in cups, which happens to be what CL is.

Edited January 4, 2023 by robsblubot

[OneMoSalah 8,883]

15 hours ago, Jype said:

.

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.

 

I actually disagree. I think the signings of players like Ziyech, Werner and Pulisic would of suited us under Sarri a lot more than any other coach because 2 of the 3 of them, they were the sort of players we missed/lacked/needed to upgrade. Werner would of certainly got chances with his movement in a Sarri team in the same way Jose Callejon did and even Pedro did. Ziyech would of been a wide playmaker in the way that Insigne was also. Which suits him well. Guys like Mount and James would of also been significantly important to Sarri also like Hysaj and Zielinski/Hamsik.

In the final third we were hopeless with Sarri but really Pedro was the only attacker that suited his system well. Hazard was world class and on his day as good as he wanted to be but him and Willian were guilty of coming towards the ball too much, taking far too many touches or not running off the ball in behind teams. Yes Hazard also had the dependency of the other players to deal with because he had been the key man in the team for years but as a collective relying on him for so long specifically under Jose I think made us such a blunt side because everyone knew the plan was give it to Eden, let him do the rest.

In the first two thirds of the pitch under Sarri we made significant progress in terms of building out from the back, passing sequences and working the ball into areas just up to the final third. Even then, goals have always been an issue since we sold Diego Costa so to say Sarri’s football stifled our attack that badly, when really, in the past however many seasons, we’ve struggled to be prolific in a lot of aspects is just selective.

Edited January 4, 2023 by OneMoSalah

[Jype 6,398]

4 hours ago, robsblubot said:

While folks have pointed to numbers and performances, I did not, and do not see, what the intent is with potter. Perhaps he's also imply lacking the players to implement his ideas, but I honestly do not know what they are... like specifically as I did Arteta's. BTW, I'm actually not a big fan of that system (Pep's and Ateta's) as I think it's extremely fragile in cups, which happens to be what CL is.

You don't say?

With hugely important players like Kante, James, Chilwell and Fofana all out simultaneously for all of the last 10-15 games (Kante even longer) I struggle to see how anyone would perform miracles with this squad. On top of that we're desperately crying out for a striker yet we have only Aubameyang, who was always going to be just a mediocre stop-gap, and Havertz who's been underperforming ever since joining the club. Pulisic and Ziyech have also been terrible for years under each and every manager and they were never going to magically step up with just a managerial change. Silva is also starting to look his age so having a leaky midfield, James/Chilwell also out has only amplified that problem. Azpilicueta has looked over the hill since last season but for some reason got an extension last summer before Potter even came in.

All together it's very much a dysfunctional group of players that Potter so far has had absolutely fuck all chance to try and repair so I don't think it's a surprise we're not seeing him implement his ideas to the team's play yet.

For me the jury is still very much out on Potter. Right now I too am not seeing his 'identity' on the team but I definitely saw it at Brighton and I liked what I saw so as it's still relatively early into his career at the club and the squad is a total mess due to no fault of his own (the long term key injuries and neglectful squad building under the previous manager) I'm willing to look past this problem for now and let him work in peace.

He won't be allowed, nor should he be, to play mediocre football for years like Arteta while waiting/hoping for things to click together but making a judgement based on about 2 months of football while the manager has had no input to the squad building and has also been battling with an injury crisis is so very unfair IMO. Personally I'm just planning to keep an open mind till the rest of the season and with a full summer transfer window and a full pre-season we need to start seeing much better things very early into next season. If Potter can't deliver that, he needs to be sacked before next Christmas and be replaced with someone whose playing style is suite to delivering the goods with the same group of players. 

[Vegetable 830]

3 hours ago, Jype said:

All together it's very much a dysfunctional group of players that Potter so far has had absolutely fuck all chance to try and repair so I don't think it's a surprise we're not seeing him implement his ideas to the team's play yet.

Being picky, but I have to say it's quite amazing for me why Potter is getting so much slack here - so far, all our previous managers - Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel had to (and did so) implement their tactics and philosophy from the very first game, with same or worse group of players. I know they took over between seasons, but c'mon - they did turn things around from first game and now we are suddenly giving Potter 10, 15 or 30 games to sit and look around? All 7 or 8 previous games is playing what was left by Tuchel, tactic-wise and personnel-wise, except we lack the crosses into box now, so only way to score now is penalties or some weird accident.

If the club had appointed manager, who has no freaking idea what to do with the team mid-season, then it's even more ridiculous, than appointing someone of Potter's format at all in the first place.

And seriously, we love to criticize our players here, but Jorgi, Pulisic, Havertz and so on are not some skill-less idiots. With Tuchel there was a problem of finishing and being clinical, now we suddenly have problem of playing football better, than worst team in league. 90% of world's managers would give up their leg for most of our squad, it's a matter of manager to know how to play for their's strengths and how to make this bunch an actual team. Yes, we need to shop around for better players, but we need them to excel in PL and CL, not to prevent dropping to Championship for god's sake.

If poor Potter cannot implement his great ideas with players Chelsea have, than maybe it's time for him to sod off, maybe some Norwegian league will provide him with players adequate to his tactical vision. 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Vegetable

[Jype 6,398]

53 minutes ago, Vegetable said:

Being picky, but I have to say it's quite amazing for me why Potter is getting so much slack here - so far, all our previous managers - Sarri, Lampard, Tuchel had to (and did so) implement their tactics and philosophy from the very first game, with same or worse group of players. I know they took over between seasons, but c'mon - they did turn things around from first game and now we are suddenly giving Potter 10, 15 or 30 games to sit and look around? All 7 or 8 previous games is playing what was left by Tuchel, tactic-wise and personnel-wise, except we lack the crosses into box now, so only way to score now is penalties or some weird accident.

Take away James, Chilwell, Kante and Rüdiger from the time Tuchel took over and the ride would have been a lot bumpier early on, wouldn't you say? On top of the key players being consistently fit, at the time Azpi, Silva and Jorginho were also a couple years younger with more mileage left on their legs so how exactly was that squad 'same or worse' than the one we've had available in the last 10 games or so? 

Maybe despite an injury crisis it would still have been better than what Potter has come up with but it most certainly wouldn't have ended in a CL victory, that's for fucking sure. Even last season when Tuchel lost key players like Kante, James and Chilwell simultaneously to injuries our form went to shit and we fell from top of the league to 1 win in 8 games around December 2021.

I'm just calling it as I see it and this revisionism just seems funny to me.

Say we sack Potter on the spot after losing to City tomorrow, who would you say has to come in that immediately elevates the squad and makes top 4 this season? Has to be a realistic option from whoever's free. If the answer is no one, isn't it better to relax a little bit and just see out the season and give the man a chance? If the football shows no signs of improvement when key players get back from the sick bay and possible new signings gets settled in, a managerial change can be a topic for discussion after the season is over and there are potentially better candidates available.

[robsblubot 3,595]

6 hours ago, Jype said:

You don't say?

With hugely important players like Kante, James, Chilwell and Fofana all out simultaneously for all of the last 10-15 games (Kante even longer) I struggle to see how anyone would perform miracles with this squad. On top of that we're desperately crying out for a striker yet we have only Aubameyang, who was always going to be just a mediocre stop-gap, and Havertz who's been underperforming ever since joining the club. Pulisic and Ziyech have also been terrible for years under each and every manager and they were never going to magically step up with just a managerial change. Silva is also starting to look his age so having a leaky midfield, James/Chilwell also out has only amplified that problem. Azpilicueta has looked over the hill since last season but for some reason got an extension last summer before Potter even came in.

All together it's very much a dysfunctional group of players that Potter so far has had absolutely fuck all chance to try and repair so I don't think it's a surprise we're not seeing him implement his ideas to the team's play yet.

For me the jury is still very much out on Potter. Right now I too am not seeing his 'identity' on the team but I definitely saw it at Brighton and I liked what I saw so as it's still relatively early into his career at the club and the squad is a total mess due to no fault of his own (the long term key injuries and neglectful squad building under the previous manager) I'm willing to look past this problem for now and let him work in peace.

He won't be allowed, nor should he be, to play mediocre football for years like Arteta while waiting/hoping for things to click together but making a judgement based on about 2 months of football while the manager has had no input to the squad building and has also been battling with an injury crisis is so very unfair IMO. Personally I'm just planning to keep an open mind till the rest of the season and with a full summer transfer window and a full pre-season we need to start seeing much better things very early into next season. If Potter can't deliver that, he needs to be sacked before next Christmas and be replaced with someone whose playing style is suite to delivering the goods with the same group of players. 

Fofana is important now? that's a bit of a stretch eh.

The issue here is that most if not all issues with players and roster applied to Tuchel. I have my own idea about how much input Tuchel had in building the squad, but it's the same crop of players with the same injury proneness. Some here would say Cucurella is a huge improvement over Alonso (I'm not one of them); that koulibaly was a good signing, that Sterling is an improvement over Werner (again not for me).

While managers get some leeway into building the squad, they also have to work with what they got. That was said about Tuchel, and it applies to Potter as well.

I'm not going into Arteta once again; I believe everybody knew his school of thought coming from City and Pep's wing. Arsenal merely wanted that style of play and bet on someone who could perhaps deliver it.
I'm not sure what Potter is all about at this level and so far I've seen nothing interesting about his work so far. Yes, it is early days, but once again I don't see the "intent." What is the key aspects of the football he wants his team to play? Is it all applicable to a club like Chelsea with its peculiar set of players? I for one find it interesting Potter gets so much backing around here because for me he hasn't done enough to be here to begin with.

Edited January 4, 2023 by robsblubot

[MoroccanBlue 5,375]

1 minute ago, robsblubot said:

I for one find it interesting Potter gets so much backing around here because for me he hasn't done enough to be here to begin with.

Well what other choice do we have?

[robsblubot 3,595]

3 minutes ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Well what other choice do we have?

Reckon if you look at Potter resume, a lot of managers would fit the bill. "No experience at a top club" in particular would broaden the scope quite a bit.

Edited January 4, 2023 by robsblubot

[ZAPHOD2319 4,801]

3 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

I for one find it interesting Potter gets so much backing around here because for me he hasn't done enough to be here to begin with.

A manager that took a promoted team, coached up the talent they had while adding players that were not out of their small budget and getting them to the top of the table doesn't appeal to you? He was tipped to take over the English National team. I am really shocked at how much venom the guy has received.