All this mumbo jumbo of taking over mid season, having lack of pre season, injuries etc is just hopium bollocks. Surely they can still beat Fulham and Forest no ? Potter is a middle of table manager and there is no shame in that (like Moyes), but trying to sugarcoat him as a tactical genius is insane. This is the guy who got very very lucky vs ETH when his supposed "tactical aptitude" got demolished in the first half against us. We dominated them so much until he changed his tactics and we should probably lead 3-0 out of the first half if not for his insane luck.
Graham Potter | turns down Ajax job
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
He's had some horrendously bad luck really so far, their squad is decimated with injuries all the time and the Felix red card is just another in a list of problems for him to deal with for the next 3 games. I actually think they would have gone on to win yesterday if he hadn't got sent off, so that's 3 points needlessly lost. Speaking completely without bias, I've seen enough of Potter's football at Brighton to know he'll do really well at Chelsea if they give him time. Without these injuries, I suspect he'd have got them going by now or soon, but it's probably delayed the process unless they spend well this month.
On a side note, I was really impressed by Lewis Hall last night, despite the error for their goal. He looks like a cracking young player, unfortunately for Chelsea it's in a position that they're well stocked.
On a side note, I was really impressed by Lewis Hall last night, despite the error for their goal. He looks like a cracking young player, unfortunately for Chelsea it's in a position that they're well stocked.
I wonder if some of the players are thinking "Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?", especially given the recent results.
Someone already established will have more credit in the bank for players to be more certain things will turn around, but Potter doesn't have that.
Could easily be a ever decreasing circle, that ends with him getting the sack.
Someone already established will have more credit in the bank for players to be more certain things will turn around, but Potter doesn't have that.
Could easily be a ever decreasing circle, that ends with him getting the sack.
Almost time for the new manager CL run bounce.
You say they have a lot of quality but how many leaders does that squad have that identify with the Chelsea way. Loathe him or love him but John Terry is the Chelsea way, Lampard, Essien, Drogba, Ballack, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole.
They just don’t have that strong English core and more importantly leaders in their prime. The team that won the CL had a prime in form and incredibly strong spine of Mendy then in form, Tiago Silva 2 years younger and alongside the PL best CB at the time, Antonio Rudiger, plus Christensen who was also better than what they have right now with Reece James, Chillwell, Alonso as wing back options and Kovacic, Jorginho and Kante dominating the midfield, who was man of the match in the final. Mount was playing his best football with Havertz. That Chelsea team didn’t concede, and wore teams down to win 1-0 or 2-0. Fast forward two years and Tiago Silva is closer to 40 then 35, Kante not fit and burdened by being outed as non vaccinated, Kovacic can’t carry the midfield, Jorginho just looks old, and Mason Mount ain’t all that right now.
Add all that to a much beloved Manager being sacked who won you the champions league and pushed the team to three domestic finals in his tenure, won the super cup and world club cup and you have some baseball/NFL nut thinking he can buy up everything in a 5 mile radius and eventually the club will come good.
The money Todd Boehly has wasted already ; Cuchrella will go down as one of the worst transfer in history, Chelsea have too many players who are all very similar, lots of like for like midfield players, Felix is about as close to Havertz as you can get and the team just looks totally uninterested and when that happens, especially with a new rookie manager because that’s what potter is in terms of big club experience, players tend to hide or go missing, or worse fake injuries!
As a united fan it’s great to see another big club getting the good old USA treatment where they really don’t know what makes a soccer club tick so they go buy football mercenaries. Long May it continue
There is definitely that happening. We have heard Rio talking about Moyes time at United and it was similar, some of the players thinking, "who are you to tell me how to play?"
Players like Sterling, Koulibaly, Mount who all probably have more power than the manager.
Sterling was playing in title winning teams then is being told to play LWB? He must be thinking seriously?
The only way this works is if Chelsea go with Potter and get rid of egos that think they are bigger than the manager.
No idea how many leaders they have as I don't follow them closely enough to make any sort of assessment of that.
They have plenty of experienced pros who have been around the block -
Koulibaly
Kante
Jorginho
Silva
Kovacic
Azpilicueta
Sterling
This is where you need a strong owner/dof who states with force/clarity that the manager is backed and is trusted to make the best decisions.
Otherwise players are just going to wait it out for potter to be sacked.
We’ve seen it before with many different teams and managers (utd included).
That made me laugh
Wouldn't be surprised if it's a mix of Brentford,Fulham and probably Arsenal fansOn the one hand, I was watching this thinking 'that's quite endearing of the fans to show faith and give him support' but then it all sounded kind of sarcastic and mocking with the 'best manager in the world'
Might be a Graham Moyes moment for Chelsea.
Yes, but doesn't help when the owner is moving like the way Boehly is. Some Chelsea fans say there is a method to the madness.
They have brought in 4/5 new guys, they got in the recruitment team from Brighton, Leipzig and Southampton.
They are not all there yet but then they are spending money that this new recruitment team will need.
For example, Nkunku has a release clause, why do a deal in November before your recruitment team has been finalised? What if they have different ideas?
I dont see the method to this madness.
Signing a CB for a 7 year deal too.
Just waiting for the “we aspire to be like Arsenal” quote now.
All the Chelsea fans I've spoken to are blaming the players. Most of them think it was a mistake to fire Tuchel but like Potter. You tend to assume that, because it's Chelsea, he'll just be fired as well pretty soon, but it's different owners and if Abramovich was still there, I doubt if Potter would have been appointed. It smacks of players thinking they pick the manager and not the other way round, something we've seen at Chelsea before. Potter doesn't strike me as a disciplinarian type, so he may be doomed there.
He has the same weird demeanour in front of the camera as Ole had.
It's the "I'm out of my depth here" look that happens to all managers that don't realise the expectations of the club they're taking over.
Also, doesn't this sound familiar? Weren't we saying this for years and once we got a good manager a couple of dicks left and everyone remembered they were decent footballers?
I feel like Potter doesn't deserve this misery
Yeah must be, because he didn't have it at Brighton.
He took the job, he took the pay rise and he believes he's the right man for the job. He brought the misery on himself with a bad choice.
Do people deserve misery for making a bad career choice?
It's not like he is a horribly arrogant man or anything. He's largely earned his stripes as a coach and now he's reached the highest level, he's been put in terrible circumstances.
Yeah he seemed to just fit right at Brighton. Good guy, winning games, praising the opposition for playing well when Brighton lost or drew, only expectation was to not get relegated. Totally different world now, we can talk about players needing time to adjust but he needs at least a couple of years to realise none of that stuff is okay at this end of the league. You have to win and apply discipline and consequence across your squad, most of these lads can play elsewhere for the same money and a better shot at trophies.
It doesn't even matter if he is out of his depth or not.
The narrative already spinning about from Football fans to the media to the pundit side is he is out of his depth. Very hard to shake that espeically after this horrendous start.
It will just keep coming and coming. To be honest he looks out of his depth
The narrative already spinning about from Football fans to the media to the pundit side is he is out of his depth. Very hard to shake that espeically after this horrendous start.
It will just keep coming and coming. To be honest he looks out of his depth
You do wonder how much of a hold he has on the dressing room at this moment in time. Keep losing and whatever faith they have in him will dissipate entirely
Do players deserve misery for playing poorly? I mean, at the end of the day it's just a game, nobody deserves misery. I'm surprised at the outpouring of sympathy though.
Chelsea fans deserve misery
I'm not saying he deserves misery but no one should feel sorry for him, and if you do it's because you're accepting he isn't up to the job. Again, he didn't have to take this job, he could have waited. Most of us said this was going to be almost impossible before he took it.
exactly, only fans deserve it.Whats happening is not completely his fault, sure. But so far the media have been taking it pretty easy on him.
Well Fergie won once in his first 6 but yep by game 10 for sure you need to be on the upward results wise how many games has potter been there now?
I think the Chelsea job is way too big for him.
He's gone from Östersund to Swansea to Brighton to Chelsea! He definitely has the look of a man out his depth and the comparisons with Moyes and Ole are fair.
Pochettino would be a better fit for Chelsea under the new owners.
He's gone from Östersund to Swansea to Brighton to Chelsea! He definitely has the look of a man out his depth and the comparisons with Moyes and Ole are fair.
Pochettino would be a better fit for Chelsea under the new owners.
Yeah I doubt anyone at the club was looking at Aubameyang and said 'now that's a top class striker if there ever was one'. He was just a short term stop-gap to fill in while the club continue to look for more permanent solutions. Nkunku, while not a full-on striker, was already on the club's radar since last summer and a move for 2023 was always in the making.
If anything United fans should know how slim pickings the market for top class strikers has been in the last few years, having seen the club go from one stop gap to another (Ighalo -> Cavani -> Weghorst) and it's not like Ronaldo was brought back with a long term future in mind either.
Carrick was manager for 3 games, won 2, drew 1, exactly the same as RR did in his first 3 games, it’s proof of absolutely feck all.
There’s no ppm in the cup so stop looking at transfermarkt without clicking in Premier League, and currently in the league, RR has a far better PPM than Potter.
If RR is a snake oil salesman, what does that make Potter?
I don’t think he’s capable of turning it around. Looks like a deer in headlights. He’s still a good manager though
He's not a victim, lets be serious. He's being paid bucket loads of money to do a big boy's job. It comes with the territory that you are rarely walking into something perfect at a top club because the performance is always far removed from the expectation if it's a club that wants to win.
It's a tough job but if we remove the takeover, Boehly etc out of the equation (even though they do offer some mitigation) and judge him on the core work of a manager on a daily basis, it can be distilled to "is he getting the most out of these players?" The league position says that he's performing well below par as a coach with this squad. He's also failed to settle on any defined idea, which most top managers have an eye for. He's also completely failing to talk up his position, the top managers talk like top managers.
So actually there are quite a few indicators that within his own role he is failing irrespective of what the ownership is doing. I still personally would give him the season to improve.
HE cant do shit. The human beings available to him are the ones that do the job.
Like, OF COURSE the players available to him matters. Why even buy players if its so irrelevant to performance? Just use whatever you recruit from the academy. Fulham and Nottingham Forest are also full of world class players, its been years since clubs in the Premier League were defenseless against the big six teams. It happens every single season that they beat some of these teams.
Fulham is 6th in the Premier League after 19 gamesweeks. Perhaps we should show more respect to Fulham than we are.
Brighton were successful under Pottter because of Brightons club structure, recruitment, and time and patience to build a squad.
Chelsea has bought a ton of players that dont mesh well, coupled with injuries to key players and former giants like Kante aging, its no wonder they are struggling.
Yeah sure, maybe another manager would do better, but I will never not blame the players on the pitch for playing poorly.
Still think he's a great coach but Chelsea has been a horrible fit for him. He just wasn't the manager they needed given their situation, he's the type of coach you hire when you've spent a couple of years setting up the infrastructure needed for him to thrive.
I don't think anyone ever hailed him as a 'tactical genius', at least not in the sense of a Benitez or Mourinho. He had Brighton playing well in a coherent system and that was something we've sorely lacked for years, so the caf fell in love with him.
Yeah but you're going way too far the other way with this whole line of argument.
Of course not all the ills at Chelsea fall at Potters doorstep. They have recruited poorly and have new owners. Most of setting up to be a success in football comes down to recruitment and quality as we know.
But as manager you are tasked with inspiring players, organising players, motivating players. By saying he can't do shit it makes it seem as if players are robots operating within a vacuum.
To be honest hinting that he's a helpless bystander is about as valid as your straw man example of "why not use any players from the academy if the players don't matter." They're both nonsensical, for ultimate success you need good recruitment aligned to good management and they're failing at both. Much more can be made of this squad and they need better players too.
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Good job they’re playing Charity FC on the weekend. Manager need a win? Player waiting for their first goal? Let us help you with that
Stop being dishonest here.
Ole’s PL record in that last season looked like this:
Played 12, Won 5, Lost 5, Drew 2. PPM: 1.42
Ragnick:
Played 24, Won 10, Lost 7, Drew 7. PPM: 1.54
Pottter:
Played 12, Won 4, Lost 5, Drew 3. PPM: 1.25
Potter still has Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, United & City all to play away from home also. It’s gonna get a whole lot worse.
So sure, keep pretending there’s a debate to be had or that the one who did best in the worst situation (caretaker only, tookover a side in much more turmoil) or the only one who has an recent worthwhile achievement (top 3 in a big league) is the “snake oil salesman” of the three.