I just think it is time to call the project a failure

we are recording 0 shots and 0 touches in the box against a team near the bottom...I mean, how is that even acceptable as a Chelsea manager?

Todd should sack him asap

3 hours ago, Deino said:

Klopp and Pep both showed a change in the way their team was playing. They might not have gotten every result going their way but the way they changed and motivated the team was there. 

Klopp made Liverpool a middling Rodgers team to a gung ho attack attack attack team and Pep was experimenting a ton until he got it right. 

None of this can be applied to this Chelsea team. There is no uplifting in spirit or morale, there is no change in approach to the game and the only one whose career is brought back from the brink is Kepa.  

 

It still took them both plenty of time to get it right though. And plenty of money so that the squad was their squad. I remember at the time plenty of City fans were wondering whether Pep was the right man for the long term. 

The games that Potter has had everyone available to him we looked decent, and it looks like there are new signings coming in to hopefully improve the squad this month. 

Some of our results and performances have obviously not been good enough. But if this is truly a long term vision then we need to give the manager time for once to at least try to get things right. 

I’m willing to give him that time once he has his players and has had a preseason. If I’m wrong then so be it, but I’d actually prefer the club to have a bit of patience. It might mean a season or two of crap but if it does work and we are eventually competing at the top of the table consistently, then it will all be worth it in my opinion. 

I don’t think the club will sack him yet. It’s too soon and they will look like mugs sacking someone after all the talk of taking a long term view. I think he’ll get at least until the end of next season and if we’re out of the top 4, he’ll be gone  2 seasons without CL will hit the books hard  

 

I mean, who else is there anyway? No-one. 
 

It does feel like Moyes at United. 

Is it any mitigation to say that if Potter had James then we would be doing much better? We’ve decent when he’s been playing. 

4 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Is it any mitigation to say that if Potter had James then we would be doing much better? We’ve decent when he’s been playing. 

We would be much better. 

If we had James we would be better. 

If we had chilwell we would be better 

If we had Kante we would be better. 

 

 

12 minutes ago, JM7 said:

I don’t think the club will sack him yet. It’s too soon and they will look like mugs sacking someone after all the talk of taking a long term view. I think he’ll get at least until the end of next season and if we’re out of the top 4, he’ll be gone  2 seasons without CL will hit the books hard  

 

I mean, who else is there anyway? No-one. 
 

It does feel like Moyes at United. 

Can’t even afford to sack him because of the ridiculous long term contract. Yet again Boehly with his ridiculous long term contracts has shot himself in the foot. Why he bumped his contract from £2m to £12m & gave him a 5yr contract is anyone’s guess. Sacking him now will mean a £54m payout, you then factor in a new package for a new manager and his team. We will get him hard by FFP sanctions, and to think Boehly & his team called Chelsea a badly run business. Roman would never have sanctioned non of the mad long contracts he has been handing out. To think fans gave Marina grief.

I reckon and think he should get to the end of the season, just stay away from Mac Allister & Trossard. The problem though will be players can sense when a manager is a dead man walking.

There are loads of managers we could potentially look at though; 

1. Luis Enrique (free)

2. Pochettino (free, Spurs bound I think)

3. Marco Rose (Leipzig)

4. Ruben Amorim (Porto)

5. Gallardo (free)

 

2 hours ago, drjonesy1994 said:

It still took them both plenty of time to get it right though. And plenty of money so that the squad was their squad. I remember at the time plenty of City fans were wondering whether Pep was the right man for the long term. 

The games that Potter has had everyone available to him we looked decent, and it looks like there are new signings coming in to hopefully improve the squad this month. 

Some of our results and performances have obviously not been good enough. But if this is truly a long term vision then we need to give the manager time for once to at least try to get things right. 

I’m willing to give him that time once he has his players and has had a preseason. If I’m wrong then so be it, but I’d actually prefer the club to have a bit of patience. It might mean a season or two of crap but if it does work and we are eventually competing at the top of the table consistently, then it will all be worth it in my opinion. 

My issue is one of a more basic level and isn't necessarily Potter specific. Whilst not having a pre season is a valid point he and his team has had an unusual amount of mid season down time. He had a three week break when he first joined due to the Queens death and now a WC winter break.

Regardless of the tactics, formations and passing patterns, there has been plenty of opportunity to establish a fitness and conditioning regime that helps to cut down on injuries and gets players to a level where they don't disappear after an hour. Mount, Havertz, pulisic, Koulibaly, Kovacic, Aubameyang. Just a few examples of players you can clearly see do not have the physical fitness levels to compete for a sustained period over 90 minutes.

For me it is weird how little our players want to be in the opposition box or shoot the ball. I would think that is what players in general want to do. Score and try to score. It is so easy to play against us. I have seen 3-4 different ways to stop us by inferior opponents under Potter. Thiago Silva is playing like he should and probably Kepa. Otherwise nothing else is really working. We are bullied in midfield and our attacking players are afraid of scoring or trying to score. There is no belief.

Anyway I am so emotionally detached from Chelsea...never been like this before. Nottingham scored and it felt like nothing. Just..oh well it was coming. I don't want to watch Potters pressers, he is so dull as a person. I don't expect us to win or care that much about the result...maybe this americanization of our club has done something for me...probably still a bit hurt we sacked Tuchel. I don't know..

The next two City-games I don't dread at all. City is twice the team and we have no chance in those games other than City not showing up in one of them...

For me it is very simple, if we want to continue to get result. Potter need to go back playing back 3 and just play slow, boring football. 

If he doesn't think about getting result, then play more kids. 

12 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

For me it is very simple, if we want to continue to get result. Potter need to go back playing back 3 and just play slow, boring football. 

If he doesn't think about getting result, then play more kids. 

To me it is very simple, he should be sacked now simply because of how bad we played last night in the second half

0 shots in the second half is utter madness. That says a lot. 

I was one who wanted to give Potter a chance, based on what I was seeing with Brighton, but we must be the most boring team to watch for a neutral.  When we're not playing, I might watch the odd game on TV but there's certain teams I won't bother with as I know it will be dull.  I think that is us now for the non Chelsea fan.  I've had a season ticket since 1982, so have seen a relegation season, but in every season you always get at least a handful of exciting games, even when we used to finish lower middle.  The football has been boring for some time but even under TT when it went stale I thought there were games in that period which were exciting (Liverpool home, Madrid away) even Spurs at home this season.  I just think that with TT, he could get the team up for it in certain games but the other games, boring.  With Potter I don't see us being up for any game.  It's like TT, 25% exciting games, and with the rest boring but likely to get a result (such as Everton away this season), with Potter, 0% exciting and any crunch game, or something on it, guarantee loss.  That is what worries me......

34 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

My issue is one of a more basic level and isn't necessarily Potter specific. Whilst not having a pre season is a valid point he and his team has had an unusual amount of mid season down time. He had a three week break when he first joined due to the Queens death and now a WC winter break.

Regardless of the tactics, formations and passing patterns, there has been plenty of opportunity to establish a fitness and conditioning regime that helps to cut down on injuries and gets players to a level where they don't disappear after an hour. Mount, Havertz, pulisic, Koulibaly, Kovacic, Aubameyang. Just a few examples of players you can clearly see do not have the physical fitness levels to compete for a sustained period over 90 minutes.

Yeah I agree with your second paragraph here. Outside of the fitness issues I think there is an effort issue as well. Teams don’t even need to play that well against us, they just need to outrun us and outfight us and we will crumble. That is a problem that Potter inherited and tbh I think goes back to Conte’s second season here. Obviously it is up to Potter to fix it but I do think it is a problem we’ve had at this club for a number of years now. 

37 minutes ago, evissy said:

For me it is weird how little our players want to be in the opposition box or shoot the ball. I would think that is what players in general want to do. Score and try to score. It is so easy to play against us. I have seen 3-4 different ways to stop us by inferior opponents under Potter. Thiago Silva is playing like he should and probably Kepa. Otherwise nothing else is really working. We are bullied in midfield and our attacking players are afraid of scoring or trying to score. There is no belief.

Anyway I am so emotionally detached from Chelsea...never been like this before. Nottingham scored and it felt like nothing. Just..oh well it was coming. I don't want to watch Potters pressers, he is so dull as a person. I don't expect us to win or care that much about the result...maybe this americanization of our club has done something for me...probably still a bit hurt we sacked Tuchel. I don't know..

The next two City-games I don't dread at all. City is twice the team and we have no chance in those games other than City not showing up in one of them...

It's all down to fitness @evissy. We are a 20 minute team. We come out, all hustle and bustle. High press, shuttle runs, one or two touch passes, give and go's. Bu88er all shots of course cos it's unfashionable to use a striker. We might nick a goal a la yesterday.

Then we're blowing. It becomes more measured. Passing accuracy falls off, too many touches. That's mental fatigue. Less runs off the ball, movement slows up, that's lack of fitness. Players retain possession because the don't run, so all of the passing becomes safe and negative with no runs in behind. Ultimately the ball keeps going back to the weakest ball players in the team. KK, Cucurella, Azpi. Mistake after mistake, counter attack, goal. Now a loss of confidence to go with the lack of fitness and no ability to reignite energy levels. Even players coming off the bench are no fitter. Aubameyang bolloxed in 10 minutes.

Over and over and over again. Week after bl00dy week.

3 minutes ago, drjonesy1994 said:

Yeah I agree with your second paragraph here. Outside of the fitness issues I think there is an effort issue as well. Teams don’t even need to play that well against us, they just need to outrun us and outfight us and we will crumble. That is a problem that Potter inherited and tbh I think goes back to Conte’s second season here. Obviously it is up to Potter to fix it but I do think it is a problem we’ve had at this club for a number of years now. 

It got nothing to do with effort. We had slow backline being protected by Houdini. 

 

34 minutes ago, cfcforeverfan said:

To me it is very simple, he should be sacked now simply because of how bad we played last night in the second half

Sacking Potter right now will not accomplish anything 

1 minute ago, Bob stark said:

It got nothing to do with effort. We had slow backline being protected by Houdini. 

 

Of course effort plays a part. We half arsed it yesterday, forest were more up for it and deservedly got a result. 

If we had matched them for effort and intensity there’s no way we’d have drawn that game yesterday. 

This doesn’t just apply to yesterday, but it’s the most recent example 

11 minutes ago, drjonesy1994 said:

Of course effort plays a part. We half arsed it yesterday, forest were more up for it and deservedly got a result. 

If we had matched them for effort and intensity there’s no way we’d have drawn that game yesterday. 

This doesn’t just apply to yesterday, but it’s the most recent example 

Look at Brennan Johnson's face and body language when he was subbed. Compare to Havertz.

I was a fan of the “project”, but it’s getting worrying now! Still too early to pull the trigger given the injuries and the fact we don’t have a great squad right now.

However, the team we have is good enough to fight for 3rd/4th and we’re so far off. Again you’d cut him so slack for injuries and recruitment, yet the lack of any direction whatsoever in play style is what has me most concerned, beginning to ask serious questions of if he’s the right appointment. 

I don’t know Potter, but for me the lack of personality, grit and determination in him is rubbing off on the squad. I hope I’m wrong, and we’re setting up for the long term, but it’s really worrying at the moment.

I hope the board and recruitment team are recruiting for a certain style of play, that way finding a new manager won’t involve another overhaul of the squad.

Let's hope we can get some decent acquisitions this window.

The last gossip I saw was for a right back and central defender.

 

48 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Sacking Potter right now will not accomplish anything 

It shows that the board won’t tolerate mediocrity and will make tough decisions even if they have to admit it is a wrong decision to hire Potter at the first place

 

he is not a winner and Chelsea is not the place for him to learn at the job

24 minutes ago, cfcforeverfan said:

It shows that the board won’t tolerate mediocrity and will make tough decisions even if they have to admit it is a wrong decision to hire Potter at the first place

 

he is not a winner and Chelsea is not the place for him to learn at the job

They thought they had already made this statement.  It now looks like they have taken a step backwards.  Whilst the football had become dire under TT and the summer signings or lack of was an embarrassment there is still no denying TT'S CV. It is starting to look like egg on the race for Boehly whichever way he turns.

He may have no option but to clench and hang on for the ride. After all sacking a guy on 12m a year, five year contract just five months after the big fanfare about the long term project, would by pure gold for Sky 

Just out of interest. What's the cut-off point for some of Potters biggest supporters on here? Should he stay on if we fall into the lower half for example?

What worries me is that Potter struggled for goals at Brighton despite having all his own players and lots of time. People scorched Tuchel for his sideways football, but we are now even more sideways than ever before.

870 touches yesterday, DOUBLE what Forest had, and yet only ONE touch in the Forest box in the 2nd half.

Forest have conceded 34 goals in 17 games, and yet we couldn't get near them in the 2nd half yesterday.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bob stark said:

Sacking Potter right now will not accomplish anything 

Too true, we seem to have a habit of buying injured players like Chilwell and Fofana.

Then we have James, Kante and now I think Kovacic.

They would all be starters, I don't think any maanger compensates for that.