3 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Only two posters on here that I can think of that are never wrong are our own inside master of sauce @JM7when it comes to those transfer news before anyone else, and @BordeauxBlueand his knowledge of players from the French league. 

 

Rest of us, just mere humans am afraid.

The disrespect. 

After all that I have done in the Enzo thread. 

6 hours ago, Qaz said:

Roman hired Scolari, Andre Villas-Boas, Sarri and Avram Grant.....so he was sometimes inclined to go for unproven, untested, "latest-hot-thing" manager too at times. And sometimes it worked (Mourinho first time for example), but not always.

I wouldn't call Mourinho unproven, winning the Champions League with Porto is an insane achievement.

 

3 hours ago, evissy said:

Chelsea board firmly behind Potter

Chelsea’s draw at West Ham United on Saturday means Graham Potter’s side have won just two of their last 13 Premier League matches, leaving them ninth in the table and 10 points off the top four.

The run of results, especially with so much money spent in the summer and January transfer windows, has led to some unrest among supporters. The Champions League is the last chance the club have for silverware this season.

But though some fans are questioning whether Potter is the right man to lead the club in the post-Roman Abramovich era, the club’s owners have no such concerns, reports David Ornstein, whose column returns next week.

The feeling within the Chelsea hierarchy is that the former Brighton coach should be judged in years not months and they are confident they have one of the best managers in the game. They have a lot of changes still to make at the club and decided early on not to judge him on whether they qualify for the Champions League this season.

The leadership team feel Potter coming in mid-season with a squad that needed such a big overhaul meant success was always very unlikely in the short term and that there is still a lot of change to come to what is now a youthful team. It’s felt he has been very unlucky with injuries too.

The success of Mikel Arteta at Arsenal with a young squad after a mixed start is also seen as reassuring and the board feel that it will take some time for all the new faces to gel and understand Potter’s tactics and methods.

oh no

3 hours ago, nonotnowjim said:

Avram Grant was more tested than Potter??? Can I have some of what you are smoking please....

I don't think comparing Potter to Avram Grant is anywhere near as bad as comparing Potter to an actual young talented manager like Villas Boas

Obviously it didn't work out for Andre here but I remember I had the highest expectations and excitement for him.   

At 32 he'd already achieved more than 47 year old Potter has in his career and had just come from managing the best season in the history of the Portugese league while also winning the Europa league.  He won 85% of his games the previous season with Porto to put it into perspective Villas Boas won more games in 1 season at Porto than Potter did in 3 and a half years at Brighton.

I think with a bit more experience in dealing with big players and a more diplomatic approach to phasing out the old guard Andre could have been a top manager here.  I don't think Potter did a particularly good job at Brighton and he's shown absolutely nothing to suggest he should be managing a club of our stature.

Edited February 13, 20233 yr by TimesUpPotter

Those are just words. Performances don't improve from now until May I think he's gone. 

Improvement I want to see is a longer duration of form. Instead of seeing 30-40 minutes of it (like against West Ham) let's turn it into 60-70 minutes against Dortmund/Saints. Then let's inevitably turn that into 90 mins. We need to see better in game management as well now that Potter will soon have all of his options available. 

 

1 minute ago, Valerie said:

Surely only in the Prediction League @Gol15  !

Hey I admitted I was wrong on several occasions, which is more than a few people here! 

4 hours ago, evissy said:

The leadership team feel Potter coming in mid-season with a squad that needed such a big overhaul meant success was always very unlikely in the short term and that there is still a lot of change to come to what is now a youthful team. It’s felt he has been very unlucky with injuries too.

The success of Mikel Arteta at Arsenal with a young squad after a mixed start is also seen as reassuring and the board feel that it will take some time for all the new faces to gel and understand Potter’s tactics and methods.

Whoever wrote this is talking so much crap.

First off, he didn't come in mid-season. Mid-season would have been a few weeks ago, he's been here since September, he even got a mini preseason to evaluate and improve things, but not a single thing improved after the world cup.

The squad needed a big overhaul........what an absolute crock of sh*t. No squad that wins 2 trophies, reaches 4 finals and finishes the previous season 3rd in the league needs a big overhaul. Tweaks? definitely. A big overhaul? complete nonsense. 1/3 of last season we were flying and looking like genuine title contenders before injuries f**ked us.

The biggest insult to our intelligence is using Arteta's Arsenal as an example. Arteta took over an Arsenal team that actually did need a big overhaul. They were drifting more and more as time went on, sitting in the bottom half of the table. We on the other hand, like I said above, were on the up. We were winning European titles, reaching a cup final every season, finishing top 4 in consecutive seasons, Arsenal weren't anywhere near our level.

There is so much spin going on around this club at the moment.

Edited February 13, 20233 yr by Scott Harris

I'm not opposed to giving Potter time, but I will die on the hill that he's not good enough at this point in his career. I think more people are in love with the idea of Potter and the long-term project than the actual man himself and that is telling. 

What Mourinho & Tuchel for example meant to fans is something that is quite hard to articulate. I feel little towards GP in comparison he doesn't invoke the same feelings and it has nothing to do with the results, as a personality he's just boring.

He doesn't have that fire and passion we are so accustomed to seeing from top coaches. Without passion and desire I ask you all what is this sport? If you can't get that from your head coach why would you be getting it from your players? 

I've coached and continue to coach kids from the ages of 18 months to 16, so I cannot fully relate to professional footballers. One thing I will tell you, players respond to passion from the coach a hell of a lot more than a passive, "emotionally intelligent" individual who sees football decisions as "just life" or when things aren't going your way that's just the way it is.

No you bend life to your own will, be proactive take some responsibility. Demand more from yourself, players and the FA/referees. 

The ones that are Potter out and that percentage grows as the days go by, I sympathise with. I'm not Potter out, but I wholeheartedly agree the appointment was a mistake.

The Football itself isn't the main issue for me, it's the man. He's a really great guy and I wish him all the luck in the world, but that's the point for me when I think of Potter I think about luck. How he's lucky to have this job, how he's lucky to be earning such a large wage, how he's lucky to be backed so unwavering (for now). How unlucky he is to have decisions go against him and unlucky to have injuries to key players.

At what point do we consider that luck is such a big aspect surrounding Potter. Where does the actual coaching skill, competence and aptitude kick in? Tactically he's showed very little and that's something I think the majority agree on. If you're not improving players and your tactically inept what exactly are you bringing to the table that justifies firstly a large wage and secondly assurances of job safety.

The comparisons to Arteta are just ridiculous, when will people understand no two situations are the same. To compare Arteta to Potter is a disservice. The man learned from Wenger and Guardiola. How are these two coaches Potter and Arteta even in the same classification. One was a Premier league player the other played only in the league below. The level in experience is so vastly different to apply the same logic to Potter as Arteta is mind boggling. The only comparison is Arsenal struggled under Arteta, yet they struggled under a handful of managers and haven't won the league for 20 years. We are not Arsenal, and I pray we never will be. Yet Boehly and Co seem determined to turn us into them with this appointment.

I've written my analysis of this particular appointment over on the Boehly thread. I've given it enough time now where my mind is set. I don't disagree with giving him more time as it stands, I do think he isn't the right man for the job although I'm always open to being proven wrong. I believe there are at least 5 managerial names I think that we would see both instant and sustained improvements from players.

How we perform in the UCL will definitely decide for me at least as far as this season is concerned Potter's level. Using injuries and new faces as an excuse can only last for so long, when you boil it down to the numbers it's pretty obvious.

Brighton regularly under performed in their XG when under Potter. What this means is they created chances, but weren't very clinical. This could lead to two conclusions, based off this statement: he's good at coaching the build up of an attack but not the scoring of goals. The reason is either his player's just weren't very good/clinical or he's just not that good of an attacking coach especially when we consider they are scoring more goals without him now and I suspect their win percentage under the new coach may be higher ofc multiple reasons could be given for that.

Personally don't care how Potter appears to the media, the important thing is how he gets the team to play.

After the next couple of weeks we should have a better idea although I was hoping by now either Zakaria or Kovacic would already be back!

I thought I'd post up Potter's season by season managerial record pre Chelsea , as there is some good stuff in it, specifically in Sweden with Ostersunds, but where it breaks down for me is his positions in the UK, where he has done ok, but without doing anything remarkable enough that it suggests he is ready for a top club, or deserves a huge salary.

I haven't included any Cup performances in these figures - it is just League games.

You can see the obvious progression and improvement at Ostersunds, with some genuine successes and highlights, but the "improvement" at Brighton is nowhere near as clear cut, and is marginal at best over the three seasons. Certainly the end of 21/22 and beginning of 22/23 was very good, without it being a big enough sample to say whether it was a genuine performance leap, or just a purple patch, or a nice run of fixtures. Obviously in addition, there was all the media talk about how "nice" Brighton were to watch, playing "good football" etc etc.  The two big red flags for me are the win percentage at Brighton (28.3%) and the goals per game at Brighton (1.1). Neither are indicative to me of what was described in the Potter announcement as the "winning brand of football" that made him a suitable candidate for our manager, even considering Brighton's status as a smaller club with a far more limited budget.

Despite the investment from Boehly, the poor return of goals has continued at Chelsea, and as it stands, in our entire history, only Danny Blanchflower as manager in the god awful 1978/79 relegation season has returned a lower goals per game than Potter is currently achieving with us. If we draw a blank on Tuesday then Potter will even usurp Danny at the bottom of the management pile, hopefully only temporarily. 

I really hope Boehly and all his data analysts have got this one right, and that what they have seen is something genuine that is currently simply not apparent in what we are seeing on the pitch, but which will manifest itself in all it's glory with the passing of time. We're in for a bumpy ride otherwise, and a spell away from the top table ... 

People were slagging Arteta and branding him as clueless this time two years ago. They aren't even nailed on to win the league now results aren't going there way. I'd actually favor City at this point and it would be glorious to see Arsenal end up trophyless after all the hype. 

4 hours ago, evissy said:

Chelsea board firmly behind Potter

Chelsea’s draw at West Ham United on Saturday means Graham Potter’s side have won just two of their last 13 Premier League matches, leaving them ninth in the table and 10 points off the top four.

The run of results, especially with so much money spent in the summer and January transfer windows, has led to some unrest among supporters. The Champions League is the last chance the club have for silverware this season.

But though some fans are questioning whether Potter is the right man to lead the club in the post-Roman Abramovich era, the club’s owners have no such concerns, reports David Ornstein, whose column returns next week.

The feeling within the Chelsea hierarchy is that the former Brighton coach should be judged in years not months and they are confident they have one of the best managers in the game. They have a lot of changes still to make at the club and decided early on not to judge him on whether they qualify for the Champions League this season.

The leadership team feel Potter coming in mid-season with a squad that needed such a big overhaul meant success was always very unlikely in the short term and that there is still a lot of change to come to what is now a youthful team. It’s felt he has been very unlucky with injuries too.

The success of Mikel Arteta at Arsenal with a young squad after a mixed start is also seen as reassuring and the board feel that it will take some time for all the new faces to gel and understand Potter’s tactics and methods.

What evidence are they basing this belief on. If, as is being mooted, the club are investing heavily in detailed statistical background analysis as a bedrock of the decision making process where is this coming fom as a number of you guys have posted stats that clearly show that Potter is currently punching within his historical weight band and whilst there has been an upturn in his fortunes just prior to joining us apparently his best position ever has been 9th which is exactly where we are at now.

Where does this optimism come from, cos I would like to go and get myself some

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Only two posters on here that I can think of that are never wrong are our own inside master of sauce @JM7when it comes to those transfer news before anyone else, and @BordeauxBlueand his knowledge of players from the French league. 

 

Rest of us, just mere humans am afraid.

BB is currently on notice for his opinion on Badiashile...

12 hours ago, axman2526 said:

And downplaying of Graham Potters achievements too 😉

What was that? A game of bingo? 

1 hour ago, LongtimerLurker said:

I'm not opposed to giving Potter time, but I will die on the hill that he's not good enough at this point in his career. I think more people are in love with the idea of Potter and the long-term project than the actual man himself and that is telling. 

What Mourinho & Tuchel for example meant to fans is something that is quite hard to articulate. I feel little towards GP in comparison he doesn't invoke the same feelings and it has nothing to do with the results, as a personality he's just boring.

He doesn't have that fire and passion we are so accustomed to seeing from top coaches. Without passion and desire I ask you all what is this sport? If you can't get that from your head coach why would you be getting it from your players? 

I've coached and continue to coach kids from the ages of 18 months to 16, so I cannot fully relate to professional footballers. One thing I will tell you, players respond to passion from the coach a hell of a lot more than a passive, "emotionally intelligent" individual who sees football decisions as "just life" or when things aren't going your way that's just the way it is.

No you bend life to your own will, be proactive take some responsibility. Demand more from yourself, players and the FA/referees. 

The ones that are Potter out and that percentage grows as the days go by, I sympathise with. I'm not Potter out, but I wholeheartedly agree the appointment was a mistake.

The Football itself isn't the main issue for me, it's the man. He's a really great guy and I wish him all the luck in the world, but that's the point for me when I think of Potter I think about luck. How he's lucky to have this job, how he's lucky to be earning such a large wage, how he's lucky to be backed so unwavering (for now). How unlucky he is to have decisions go against him and unlucky to have injuries to key players.

At what point do we consider that luck is such a big aspect surrounding Potter. Where does the actual coaching skill, competence and aptitude kick in? Tactically he's showed very little and that's something I think the majority agree on. If you're not improving players and your tactically inept what exactly are you bringing to the table that justifies firstly a large wage and secondly assurances of job safety.

The comparisons to Arteta are just ridiculous, when will people understand no two situations are the same. To compare Arteta to Potter is a disservice. The man learned from Wenger and Guardiola. How are these two coaches Potter and Arteta even in the same classification. One was a Premier league player the other played only in the league below. The level in experience is so vastly different to apply the same logic to Potter as Arteta is mind boggling. The only comparison is Arsenal struggled under Arteta, yet they struggled under a handful of managers and haven't won the league for 20 years. We are not Arsenal, and I pray we never will be. Yet Boehly and Co seem determined to turn us into them with this appointment.

I've written my analysis of this particular appointment over on the Boehly thread. I've given it enough time now where my mind is set. I don't disagree with giving him more time as it stands, I do think he isn't the right man for the job although I'm always open to being proven wrong. I believe there are at least 5 managerial names I think that we would see both instant and sustained improvements from players.

How we perform in the UCL will definitely decide for me at least as far as this season is concerned Potter's level. Using injuries and new faces as an excuse can only last for so long, when you boil it down to the numbers it's pretty obvious.

Brighton regularly under performed in their XG when under Potter. What this means is they created chances, but weren't very clinical. This could lead to two conclusions, based off this statement: he's good at coaching the build up of an attack but not the scoring of goals. The reason is either his player's just weren't very good/clinical or he's just not that good of an attacking coach especially when we consider they are scoring more goals without him now and I suspect their win percentage under the new coach may be higher ofc multiple reasons could be given for that.

There's lots of valid opinions here,

But please don't assume Potter in front of the media is the same as Potter in the dressing room. None of us know if that fire is there or not.

He's said so himself it's two different people.

2 hours ago, Gol15 said:

I doubt you know much at all...

Gol wrong again! twice in one thread, mark the day in the calender guys!

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

Whoever wrote this is talking so much crap.

First off, he didn't come in mid-season. Mid-season would have been a few weeks ago, he's been here since September, he even got a mini preseason to evaluate and improve things, but not a single thing improved after the world cup.

The squad needed a big overhaul........what an absolute crock of sh*t. No squad that wins 2 trophies, reaches 4 finals and finishes the previous season 3rd in the league needs a big overhaul. Tweaks? definitely. A big overhaul? complete nonsense. 1/3 of last season we were flying and looking like genuine title contenders before injuries f**ked us.

The biggest insult to our intelligence is using Arteta's Arsenal as an example. Arteta took over an Arsenal team that actually did need a big overhaul. They were drifting more and more as time went on, sitting in the bottom half of the table. We on the other hand, like I said above, were on the up. We were winning European titles, reaching a cup final every season, finishing top 4 in consecutive seasons, Arsenal weren't anywhere near our level.

There is so much spin going on around this club at the moment.

How can a squad that won the Champions league need a big overhaul???????

18 minutes ago, Edjmendy said:

How can a squad that won the Champions league need a big overhaul???????

Good question. Why don't you ask Tuchel? He thought we needed it too 

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

I thought I'd post up Potter's season by season managerial record pre Chelsea , as there is some good stuff in it, specifically in Sweden with Ostersunds, but where it breaks down for me is his positions in the UK, where he has done ok, but without doing anything remarkable enough that it suggests he is ready for a top club, or deserves a huge salary.

I haven't included any Cup performances in these figures - it is just League games.

You can see the obvious progression and improvement at Ostersunds, with some genuine successes and highlights, but the "improvement" at Brighton is nowhere near as clear cut, and is marginal at best over the three seasons. Certainly the end of 21/22 and beginning of 22/23 was very good, without it being a big enough sample to say whether it was a genuine performance leap, or just a purple patch, or a nice run of fixtures. Obviously in addition, there was all the media talk about how "nice" Brighton were to watch, playing "good football" etc etc.  The two big red flags for me are the win percentage at Brighton (28.3%) and the goals per game at Brighton (1.1). Neither are indicative to me of what was described in the Potter announcement as the "winning brand of football" that made him a suitable candidate for our manager, even considering Brighton's status as a smaller club with a far more limited budget.

Despite the investment from Boehly, the poor return of goals has continued at Chelsea, and as it stands, in our entire history, only Danny Blanchflower as manager in the god awful 1978/79 relegation season has returned a lower goals per game than Potter is currently achieving with us. If we draw a blank on Tuesday then Potter will even usurp Danny at the bottom of the management pile, hopefully only temporarily. 

I really hope Boehly and all his data analysts have got this one right, and that what they have seen is something genuine that is currently simply not apparent in what we are seeing on the pitch, but which will manifest itself in all it's glory with the passing of time. We're in for a bumpy ride otherwise, and a spell away from the top table ... 

I wont really give 2 sh*t about the record in Sweden Tier 2~4 football, their quality might be worse than my local pub team Sunday league in the park down the road

1 hour ago, Sconnie Blue said:

People were slagging Arteta and branding him as clueless this time two years ago. They aren't even nailed on to win the league now results aren't going there way. I'd actually favor City at this point and it would be glorious to see Arsenal end up trophyless after all the hype. 

I would be really happy if they ended up winning nothing at the end of the season, so all those Potter supporters who keep mentioning Arteta can stop mentioning a failure who win nothing but a FA cup in 4 years

23 minutes ago, cfcforeverfan said:

I would be really happy if they ended up winning nothing at the end of the season, so all those Potter supporters who keep mentioning Arteta can stop mentioning a failure who win nothing but a FA cup in 4 years

Them ending up trophyless doesn't change the fact that they managed to mount a title challenge that we haven't been able to do in about 6 going to 7 years. I don't like Arsenal, but as a football fan, I find it admirable what they've been able to do and am jealous that we've made poor choices at our club over the years that have prevented us from challenging.

4 minutes ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

Them ending up trophyless doesn't change the fact that they managed to mount a title challenge that we haven't been able to do in about 6 going to 7 years. I don't like Arsenal, but as a football fan, I find it admirable what they've been able to do and am jealous that we've made poor choices at our club over the years that have prevented us from challenging.

i am a realist, i care about actual trophies than those self congratulating 'we fought hard' trophies

2 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

The squad needed a big overhaul........what an absolute crock of sh*t. No squad that wins 2 trophies, reaches 4 finals and finishes the previous season 3rd in the league needs a big overhaul. Tweaks? definitely. A big overhaul? complete nonsense. 1/3 of last season we were flying and looking like genuine title contenders before injuries f**ked us.

 

Cant agree on this Scott. We were rotten to the core, and have won trophies and reached finals despite the players, system, and style we played with, rather than because of it.

It has been going on for years. Slow, stagnant, sideways/backward negative football. More often than not, players simply going through the motions and playing without desire or passion.  Top 4 was achieved due to failings of others. UCL win was an immense achievement - on the back of the TT managerial bounce after Lamps almost crippled us (for all the talk of Lamps achievements with the youth, his last 2-3 months we were shambolic). The World Club Cup win was also brill, but let's not forget how we won it - laboring to get across the line against far inferior opposition.

Our squad was (and still is given the lack of movement) rotten.  GKs have not been fit for purpose. 2 first-team CBs left the squad, replaced by an old donkey with no pace from Serie A. Our wingbacks are injury prone. Our midfield has been shambolic, previously reliant on a player who passes 2 yrds and would lose in a race to my 11 yr old son. Our attackers inept and blunt. A squad full of over paid under performing players (Mendy, Kepa, K2, Auba, Jorgi, Kante due to injuries, RLC, Kova, Ziyech, Pulisic, Mount, Sterling, Havertz, Azpi etc).  There was no identity, fluidity or discernable style. Any squad with that much bloat and ineptitude needed/needs a huge overhaul - which it now appears to be getting. 

Todd and Co looks to have pressed reset on player recruitment (Young and potential)

Todd and Co looks to be looking to thin out the squad (Jorgi gone, Ziyech almost went, K2 relegated to reserves, Auba missing in action).

Todd and Co looks to be moving away from the short term thinking that saw the squad get in such a mess, with a long term vision.

...

The jury is out on whether Potter can now deliver over the season and next, to put a blue print down of a team that plays in a manner that matches the new owners ambitions. Personally, I doubt it.....but it is not something that will happen overnight.

 

Tuchel was clearly one of the best managers around. Clearly. His past 3 seasons spoke highly of his skills. 2 CL finals and so on....but he couldn't get along with the clubs owners. They decided to kick him out. 

If you are Boehly you look at the best solution for your investment. Not only did Todd kick out TT out without hesitation he decided to trust Potter with a massive 5 year deal. 

Either Boehly is an idiot or he knows something we don't know. 

2 hours ago, LongtimerLurker said:

I've coached and continue to coach kids from the ages of 18 months to 16.

Coaching an 18 month old baby.....that is some going!

Bet most were more athletic that Jorginho and Azpi are these days!