Speaking of handicaps Potter won't have the handicaps that Tuchel had last year. He won't have to deal with one of the most unprecedented events to hit a football club, he won't have to deal with having to juggle 5 competitions while the teams around him only have the league to focus on, he won't have Lukaku here causing chaos (atleast not this season) and he (hopefully) won't have a significant period of half the squad coming down with injuries and Covid.
The experience of having to deal with such a schedule (that is faced post WC) adds another advantage to us given our squad depth and experience of dealing with such. Let's say this, do Arsenal comfortably win vs even Wolves at home (or even a top half championship side) if they rest/have out Saliba, Gabriel, White, Zinchenko, Partey, Tierney, Martenelli and Jesus (the equivalents of the players we rested/were injured that game)? As good as they've started (which I'll confess has caught me by surprise) they have 8 ever presents in the side (well 8 last week I can't be bothered to check if that changed vs Leeds). Unless they spend in January it's not sustainable, infact they played many first team players in a Europa group they had control off, even Sarri felt comfortable enough to fully rotate in that competition for us until the latter stages.
Also it's easy to look back in hindsight and say these sides aren't/weren't great. Two years ago almost identical comments were being made about Jose's Spurs to Conte's (playing poor but getting results), Sancho, Ronaldo and Varane signing for United was suppose to have them over and away from us, Sarri also had superior versions of Liverpool and City aswell as a Spurs side getting getting UCL final and next to no one gave us a prayer for top four when we lost Hazard and Arsenal/Spurs signed the likes of Pepe and Ndombele.
When we had one of the best sides in Europe it was considered failure if we didn't win the title or UCL despite being up against Ferguson and at the start peak Arsenal with Henry and Co (I won't won't get started on the strength of continent sides) similar should apply here regarding the strengths or weaknesses of other top four challengers.