Explained| Why Graham Potter failed as Chelsea manager

Chelsea football club has been thriving with success in the last two decades since Russian Roman Abramovich took over the reins of the club in 2003. The club enjoyed unprecedented success before American owner Todd Boehly took over the charge of the club in 2022. In one of the significant moves in the club’s recent history, he sacked Thomas Tuchel and handed the charge of the club to English manager Graham Potter. The move backfired big time on the American owners as Potter was sacked on Sunday, April 2. But what exactly went wrong between Potter and the football club?

Potter had been making a name as a good manager in English football for a while with approaches from big clubs surrounding him in the last two seasons. Chelsea eventually broke the bank and paid £21 million to Brighton to get the services of the former Swansea manager. However, with the high ambitions of Chelsea and Potter’s defensive mindset, it was never a match made in heaven and the Englishman was sacked after just seven months at the helm of the club.

The 0-2 defeat at home to Aston Villa saw the last straw of Potter’s Chelsea rein and it ultimately came down to the experience factor. Potter’s opposite number in his final match, Unai Emery showed no sympathy for him, having gone through similar circumstances at Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain. Potter’s inexperience in managing a success-hungry club like Chelsea was always going to be a tall order.

Player management during World Cup time, injuries, suspensions and unavailability of certain players all contributed to Potter’s exit. An experienced coach will use his resources and design the tactics accordingly to navigate a team’s success. However, Potter was seen as far from ideal and lacked ideas during Champions League and domestic cup matches.

An experienced coach like Carlo Ancelotti would have let a weaker team play in the Champions League and would have concentrated on the league form. This was not the case with Potter as he went full throttle in cup games, risking the players that could have helped him save the league season and his job.

Not much could be blamed on Potter, but given the resources that you have at your disposal success is apparently something that is demanded. Chelsea spent in excess of £600 million in the last two transfer windows, breaking the records left, right and center. While the owners thought getting players like Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and Joao Felix would revive the club’s fortune, it was not the case.

Potter’s lack of idea of the players and their mentality and comfort zone saw him end up with another dilemma. Whether to cope with new signing Benoit Badiashile or to stick with Trevoh Chalobah, whether to utilize Noni Madueke or not were some of the unanswered questions in the Potter era.

While Thomas Tuchel and Chelsea could cross paths in the Champions League semifinal this season, it was the German who took charge of the pre-season and not the 47-year-old Potter. No time spent with players and understanding them made a huge difference while picking the team. Especially, when senior players like Thiago Silva and Cesar Azpilicueta got injured, a better pre-season would have given them a proper idea of who is to be used as a utility player.

Potter’s tactics in before he came to Chelsea were designed according to the team’s philosophy. Brighton were a stabilised Premier League club when he took over the charge in 2019, but the primary ambition still was to avoid the drop to the second tier. The model of working at Swansea was about promotion and eventually Premier League survival, unfortunately, that did not materialise.

The “so-called” optimized tactics of Potter failed to make an impact at Chelsea as the Blues needed advanced and attacking form. Potter failed to replicate his successful predecessors and was thus shown the door when the club was not moving in the right direction.

While Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti took charge at Stamford Bridge, their successful CV, saw them earn the respect of every player in the dressing room. Thomas Tuchel also arrived on the back of a Champions League final while Frank Lampard was an adorable figure at the club. Potter for that instance a ‘dead-man walking’ who neither had the CV nor the experience to handle big egos.

At the end of his reign, Potter was mocked as "Harry" and "Hogwarts" for not dealing with the egos of the players and failing to stamp his authority.

Potter was slightly fortunate to have survived for a longer duration as under previous ownership winning 12 of the 31 matches would have seen him depart sooner rather than later. For now, it is safe to say that, Chelsea can still save their season like in 2012 and 2021 with mid-season managerial change, which saw them lift the Champions League trophy.

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