This time last year i was defending Tuchel, his critics wanted a new manager, they got their way, now they want another manager.

19 minutes ago, coco said:

Well I'm not talking about the likes of you then. Only the ones that said before the January window 'give him time', then after all these new players came in, they waited a couple of weeks and now are saying 'enough', they literally waited 2-3 games.

Still willing to give Potter more time myself. 

20 minutes ago, coco said:

He's had half this team for just a few weeks, and yet those that said 'give him time' have waited a couple of weeks now since all the new team has been put together, they are either bottle jobs or hypocrites.

Personally I'd still stick with him Coco. But I have said today that these results can't continue and I understand why people who were previously supporting him are turning. We are all looking for some improvement, some progress, some consistency. But when he takes off the one attacking player who was causing them problems at halftime, it's impossible to understand a decision like that.

Again personally, I think we have only had three very good performances all season. Tottenham in the league, AC Milan in the CL and Dortmund in the CL on Wednesday, even though we lost that one despite creating a stack of chances, the football we played was great to watch IMO. So I was expecting a lot more today off the back of that performance.

I accept that right now, at this moment, my commitment to stick by him is probably down to gut feeling, wishful thinking and a lack of experienced, stand out candidates available to replace him. 

@just agreed, we have nothing to lose by giving him until May to sort it out, or, rightly so, he will be terminated, he would have had several months with the whole team together by then.

 

28 minutes ago, just said:

Personally I'd still stick with him Coco. But I have said today that these results can't continue and I understand why people who were previously supporting him are turning. We are all looking for some improvement, some progress, some consistency. But when he takes off the one attacking player who was causing them problems at halftime, it's impossible to understand a decision like that.

Again personally, I think we have only had three very good performances all season. Tottenham in the league, AC Milan in the CL and Dortmund in the CL on Wednesday, even though we lost that one despite creating a stack of chances, the football we played was great to watch IMO. So I was expecting a lot more today off the back of that performance.

I accept that right now, at this moment, my commitment to stick by him is probably down to gut feeling, wishful thinking and a lack of experienced, stand out candidates available to replace him. 

He messed up subbing DDF, but keep the faith Just.

Walking in a Potter wonderland.

16 minutes ago, coco said:

@just agreed, we have nothing to lose by giving him until May to sort it out, or, rightly so, he will be terminated, he would have had several months with the whole team together by then.

 

Good man Coco, good man.

We are not safe from relegation though if we continue with these results!

2 hours ago, Chris Gundleton said:

Potter's fat, short arsed Scottish sidekick winds me up too.  The look of that guy just screams to me "lower leagues".... Nothing against Scots, my all time favourite player is Stevie Clarke, but Potter's mate, no f***** way.  

He does seem a bit of a simpleton. I caught the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff they posted online, there is a clip (when first greeted with Enzo) he quipped to someone next to him “he’s taller than I thought he was”, then an awkward silence as they walked together to the training pitch. Swear Graham is just bringing along his camping mates for this gig, putting out the cones for a share of that £60m payoff. Christ.

10 minutes ago, Mod said:

We are not safe from relegation though if we continue with these results!

I have never seen us win the Championship before, don't think many on here would have either.

We do like to make history.

Keep the faith though Mod, come walk in the Potter wonderland.

10 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

I have never seen us win the Championship before, don't think many on here would have either.

We do like to make history.

Keep the faith though Mod, come walk in the Potter wonderland.

As I said before this game axman, the way Potter setup the team James and Chilwell both need to play and need to play well. 

13 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

As I said before this game axman, the way Potter setup the team James and Chilwell both need to play and need to play well. 

You did. Chiwell did play, and Dave had a good game. 

If Mount, Felix, Madueke et AL had put a shift in, we would have not missed James.

It's all good and well to have a manager that fits into the holistic approach that the new ownership wants, there's nothing wrong with that, but when that manager is someone that is not elite and doesn't have a ruthless mentality, the whole approach will fail.

Chelsea Football Club is too big for Graham Potter, plain and simple. Again, nothing wrong with that, because not everyone is built for this. I could never and will never be a CFO of a fortune 500 company because I'm simply not built for it, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

There's been 3 different breaks in this season where there was a bombardment of Chelsea fans saying "We'll be different after the break ends". The Queen's death, World Cup and the 2 weeks before the Fulham game. "Plenty of time for Potter to work with the team, get his playstyle implemented etc", and after all these breaks we just end up looking worse.

Potter is not and never will be an elite tactician. Because he hasn't shown it at Chelsea or anywhere else. Having an okayish easy on the eye style of play is fine but what about when your opposing manager makes in game changes and you're forced to go toe to toe with the best tacticians on the planet? Potter chucks on 11 players on the field and says go and does bugger all after that. Remember the game against Spurs second game of the season, Tuchel put James RCB and Loftus-Cheek RWB and completely nullifies Son. Elite tactician (although I did agree with Tuchel sacking). When has Potter ever done anything like that?

He inspires 0 confidence in the players because when you have a leader that doesn't know what they're doing and they look out of their depth, then this trickles down to the players.

It's time for Boehly to swallow his pride and consider Potter a very expensive lesson in the world of Football and how different it is to MLB.

My choices for the next manager are 1. Hansi Flick, 2. Pochettino (Both tried and tested top class managers), and then a little bit behind in Luis Enrique.

I think I'm approaching the point where the out of the coaches and the players the only one's I'd lose sleep over if they left tomorow are James, Fofana (Wes), Silva, Chilwell and Enzo (maybe Badia to an extent).

On 18/02/2023 at 10:54, JM7 said:

I was thinking about the longevity of truly elite managers at a single club. Bar Fergie and Pep, I can’t think of many world class managers who stayed elite over a significant period of time at one club.

I'm sure I've missed others, but here's some that come to mind:

• Alex Ferguson (Manchester United)
• Arsene Wenger (Arsenal)
• Carlo Ancelotti (AC Milan)
• Giovanni Trapattoni (Juventus)
• Pep Guardiola (Manchester City)
• Brian Clough (Nottingham Forest)
• Bobby Robson (Ipswich Town)
• Miguel Munoz (Real Madrid)
• Otto Rehhagel (Werder Bremen)
• Diego Simeone (Atletico Madrid)
• Jürgen Klopp (Liverpool)
• Don Revie (Leeds United)
• Hennes Weisweiler (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
• Bill Shankly (Liverpool)
• Bob Paisley (Liverpool)
• Marcello Lippi (Juventus)
• Ottmar Hitzfeld (Bayern Munich)
• Nereo Rocco (AC Milan)
• Matt Busby (Manchester United)

The good old days

Assume our 'relegation form' continues for a few more games, we'd be back with a few teams fighting off the last relegation spot. Right now, I dare say nobody is worried about playing against us, it's an easy point if not 3 on the day.. There are quite a bit to lose from now on, the position on the table, the CL 1/4 spot. Boehly's shining new signings will drop value as the poor results pour in, it's not like we could just let the trails and error continues with no consequences. Anyway, I'm hopeful that something hopefully good will happen on or off the field in the hopeful future.

He just said in his interview that we had to make a few changes and we lost because Southampton were well prepared!!!

Fck off with that nonsense.. if Roman Sais can prepare a side better than you then my lord what is left to say.. 

the only reason he got the job was because the media bugged him up to be something he is not and we bought that..

there are loads of managers who do what he did around the league .. but simply not upto managing CFC.. an extremely poor decision from the club to get this guy in. Can’t see it lasting more than 2-3 weeks now.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

I have never seen us win the Championship before, don't think many on here would have either.

We do like to make history.

Keep the faith though Mod, come walk in the Potter wonderland.

Potter won't even win the Championship inspite of the quality of our current players and yet some are hoping we somehow win the CL.

1 hour ago, I am a CPA said:

It's all good and well to have a manager that fits into the holistic approach that the new ownership wants, there's nothing wrong with that, but when that manager is someone that is not elite and doesn't have a ruthless mentality, the whole approach will fail.

Chelsea Football Club is too big for Graham Potter, plain and simple. Again, nothing wrong with that, because not everyone is built for this. I could never and will never be a CFO of a fortune 500 company because I'm simply not built for it, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

There's been 3 different breaks in this season where there was a bombardment of Chelsea fans saying "We'll be different after the break ends". The Queen's death, World Cup and the 2 weeks before the Fulham game. "Plenty of time for Potter to work with the team, get his playstyle implemented etc", and after all these breaks we just end up looking worse.

Potter is not and never will be an elite tactician. Because he hasn't shown it at Chelsea or anywhere else. Having an okayish easy on the eye style of play is fine but what about when your opposing manager makes in game changes and you're forced to go toe to toe with the best tacticians on the planet? Potter chucks on 11 players on the field and says go and does bugger all after that. Remember the game against Spurs second game of the season, Tuchel put James RCB and Loftus-Cheek RWB and completely nullifies Son. Elite tactician (although I did agree with Tuchel sacking). When has Potter ever done anything like that?

He inspires 0 confidence in the players because when you have a leader that doesn't know what they're doing and they look out of their depth, then this trickles down to the players.

It's time for Boehly to swallow his pride and consider Potter a very expensive lesson in the world of Football and how different it is to MLB.

My choices for the next manager are 1. Hansi Flick, 2. Pochettino (Both tried and tested top class managers), and then a little bit behind in Luis Enrique.

Your point regarding breaks especially is one that goes a miss amongst the fans, as the cope-ium at present is something along the lines of ‘give him the summer break’ to sort it out etc. When, he’s had breaks, heck.. we were even out of the cups early!; never mind the 3 big breaks you mentioned. Tuchel prepared his first game in charge on the plane to london ffs. By now, regardless of absentees or new players coming in, we should be seeing clear structures, discernible patterns of play, shrewd substitutions, or just any kind of identity or imprint.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

You did. Chiwell did play, and Dave had a good game. 

If Mount, Felix, Madueke et AL had put a shift in, we would have not missed James.

But how come none of them put shift in? 

I watched arsenal play before our game. It wass so easy for Arsenal to build their offense and get the ball forward. It does not matter who their fw line was. Saka was limping for the majority of the game and it didn't matter.

For us, it was whole another story. It was just very difficult for us to do any proper build up. 

3 hours ago, coco said:

This time last year i was defending Tuchel, his critics wanted a new manager, they got their way, now they want another manager.

I liked Tuchel, was sorry when he was sacked and didn’t think Potter had the track record. I’ve come to accept that things were going wrong under Tuchel at the end, but not this wrong.

id also add that it’s not yet clear whether the players we bought are any good. Felix was pants against Southampton, Mudryk has a hell of a lot to learn, and Enzo has also made mistakes and is also a work in progress. 
 

a game after champions league has always been tough. 

yet never scoring is just unacceptable. Losing to Southampton is unacceptable. Results post the January window are unacceptable and the performances mostly  unacceptable although generally not quite as dire as results. 

now is not the time to sack Potter  it’s better done in the off-season when a range of managers can be properly considered and interviewed   The only reason to sack him now is if you thought we could win the champs league with a new guy and that’s very low odds  

if we were going to sack him this season should have been in January when we still had an outside chance of top 4  

 

if he us sacked at end of season it will be obvious why  if he isn’t it will be because results and performances have improved. The end of season junk games when mid table teams just Mail it in can be ignored  

 

12 minutes ago, ozboy said:

I liked Tuchel, was sorry when he was sacked and didn’t think Potter had the track record. I’ve come to accept that things were going wrong under Tuchel at the end, but not this wrong.

id also add that it’s not yet clear whether the players we bought are any good. Felix was pants against Southampton, Mudryk has a hell of a lot to learn, and Enzo has also made mistakes and is also a work in progress. 
 

a game after champions league has always been tough. 

yet never scoring is just unacceptable. Losing to Southampton is unacceptable. Results post the January window are unacceptable and the performances mostly  unacceptable although generally not quite as dire as results. 

now is not the time to sack Potter  it’s better done in the off-season when a range of managers can be properly considered and interviewed   The only reason to sack him now is if you thought we could win the champs league with a new guy and that’s very low odds  

if we were going to sack him this season should have been in January when we still had an outside chance of top 4  

 

if he us sacked at end of season it will be obvious why  if he isn’t it will be because results and performances have improved. The end of season junk games when mid table teams just Mail it in can be ignored  

 

If things remain as grim as they are now, won't be surprised if they bring in a new gaffer just to secure us the points necessary for survival.

It's unpopular, but I think parting ways with Tuchel was the right decision. The only criticism is the timing as it should have been done in the off-season or during the WC break.

Appointing Potter as the replacement appears to be a big error now. I've been as patient as anyone and even said a few days ago that my stance of giving him the rest of the season hadn't changed, but yesterday was a travesty. Now, I have serious doubts.

3 minutes ago, Jezz said:

It's unpopular, but I think parting ways with Tuchel was the right decision. The only criticism is the timing as it should have been done in the off-season or during the WC break.

Appointing Potter as the replacement appears to be a big error now. I've been as patient as anyone and even said a few days ago that my stance of giving him the rest of the season hadn't changed, but yesterday was a travesty. Now, I have serious doubts.

The main issue with both the sacking of Tuchel, and the hiring of Potter, is that both decisions were made by the owners before they had appointed somebody to handle the football side of things. They should have waited until at least Vivell was appointed and then had him involved in the decision over manager.

Potter has no clue how to set up a team with so many different type of profiles of players.. he is constantly putting players in roles that don’t suit them.. Havertz as a striker, mount as a winger, sterling as a wingback, CG in a double pivot, Chukumeweka as an inside forward. 
 

Mudryk and Madueke require us to play the ball behind and we don’t do that .. mount,CG,Sterling require to be closer to the goal in a high press and we don’t do that. Players like Havertz, Ensor and felix require good build up so they can influence with their clever play .. we don’t do that.
 

what is he trying to do and how is he trying to play is difficult to understand.