Brighton are a MUCH better team than us BECAUSE of Graham Potter. When Boehly bought him in it was a very sensible decision because they looked at what he had done at Brighton, not just results on the pitch.
The problem with that was that Potters approach took a lot of time, everything was data based. It is reckoned that football is getting much more data driven, and due to Potter, Brighton are 2 – 3 years ahead of everyone else, It shows on the pitch now. His approach was working very well, and season on season improving. However, we will never know how far he could have gone with them, because we stepped in. De Zerbi is reaping the reward of Potters work, he is much more on field tactically astute than Potter ever was, hence the massive improvement this season. He’s improved the bits Potter never noticed.
You have to have a long-term goal, and a short-term goal. Brightons when Potter went in was, long term, European football, Premiership titles (perhaps). Short term Premiership survival. As long as you are showing progression towards the long term, and covering the short term, then great carry on.
At Chelsea he was starting further along the pathway, than at Brighton without the experience of building up to it. What are our long term goals, I suspect to stay at elite levels. European football at the very least. And build a sustainable root and branch rebuild of the club. Short term actually probably the same, for financial reasons, stay at Elite level.
Compound his problems of building his data driven team, by throwing a squad, twice the size of any he’d previously worked with. Result total confusion. He’d always worked with younger more compliant players, more open to new approaches Not our overpaid prime donnas. He identified players to buy, to fit in with his plans, and the Brighton board backed him fully. At Chelsea he gets thrown the supposed best young talent around, (because we’re all mighty, and we will have the best yank approach), regardless of whether they actually will fit in any way, and expected him to work it out, despite totally bugg&^*$g up his data plans.
Unfortunately, his on pitch tactics, were very confusing, and all the time he was here, he never settled on his starting 11. Due to constant team and formation changes. No rhythm could be built up, occasionally we had very good spells of play, and I thought great he’s finally learnt something. Only to have the next game completely altered again, disregarding what had worked well. Too much tinkering. Had the short term goal been the same as Brightons was, things could have progressed, but with European football NEEDED, it couldn’t go on. He had to go. But since relegation was almost certainly not on the horizon, it should have been at the end of season. But that causes all sorts of problems with a dead man walking.
Pull the trigger too quick, (another common American problem). Fans up in arms, so to appease them bring in Frank.
When he started his managerial career, he was given a lot of leeway, due to the transfer embargo, forced to use younger more impressionable players. We played with a freedom, that resulted in lots of goals. Defensively we were poor, but as long as we outscored our opponents then it wasn’t really a problem. We were going on very nicely. Then someone figured out how to stop us in our tracks. That meant a change of tactics were needed, and that was always Franks Achilles heel. It was always plan A is failing, switch players and continue on with Plan A. Tactically he was and still is naïve, he cannot see the whole and figure out how to change it.
None of the players will play for him as an interim, because to them he is meaningless. The only incentive is, IF they want a future at Chelsea, they NEED to show they deserve it. But without the next manager overseeing things, this is very difficult. Perhaps the new manager as some sort of consultant sporting director, to the end of the season, to see what he needs to change etc when he takes over.
However things go, I suspect if we survive FFP problems, it will be MANY years until we are again an elite club, With the players available, and the right coach, we should be able to get back into European football pretty quickly, but true contenders, I can’t see for some time. Attracting the top players, and the FFP constraints, will make recruitment very difficult. As to shifting the deadwood, we might as well give them away, as selling at a reasonable price will be nearly impossible. Who will want to pay the inflated wages, let alone actually pay for the privilege.
The bottom line is the club has had problems for years, but managed to maintain things. Then came the Ukraine war. We were well f*&^ed by our government. Roman could have been frozen out, with the club allowed to continue trading as normal, pending a sale. Safe in the knowledge that Roman was nowhere near the money.
The squad would have been the same because contracts could have been renegotiated. Clearlake would still cause problems, but with the spine of the team still there, on field we would still have been able to perform better that we have.
