Graham Potter | turns down Ajax job

Jim Beam

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Wearing a baseball cap and a (dreadful) suit too.

Never trust a man who doesn’t wear a time piece.
I can vividly see him going around the working place and shouting "we will kick some asses, yeah!!" while slapping on the back every poor soul that comes near him.

Not to be trusted.
 

Ayoba

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13m for 7 months work. Not bad Graham, not bad at all.

In all seriousness, he had to go. Too big of a job for him and it appears he just doesn't have what it takes to be an elite manager for the big clubs. Interesting to see where he goes from here.
 

SirReginald

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13m for 7 months work. Not bad Graham, not bad at all.

In all seriousness, he had to go. Too big of a job for him and it appears he just doesn't have what it takes to be an elite manager for the big clubs. Interesting to see where he goes from here.
Bit harsh to judge him on this shit show. If he can tweak his tactics and learn from this then he will grow into a better manager from the experience. Right now he certainly proved out of his depth but I’m glad he was given an actual chance to turn it around even if our position is ridiculously low. Don’t agree with any that says Tuchel would have done better, this job has to be the hardest in football right now.
 

Rnd898

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These guys will try have us believe Potter left the club for a bag of Pick and Mix, a signed shirt and a firm handshake next :lol:

The guy was on a £50+ million contract over 5 years. He’s taking at least half I imagine.
The only things that have actually been said about this in the media:

- Severance pay is unrelated to contract length (Law & Ornstein)
- Severance pay will be 'significant' (Guardian)
- Severance pay will be around £13M (Daily Mail)

I don't know about you but to me a £13M payoff for 7 months work represents a very signficiant amount and will just about treble his earnings from the club.

The current interim coach Bruno Saltor (Potter's ex-assistant) also said 'Graham and the club both thought it was the right call' when talking about the sack in yesterday's press conference so it seems he didn't even want to fight for his job and instead agreed himself it was time to go.

But your imagination says he's taking at least half of the contract so maybe we'll take that as a fact instead.
 

SilentWitness

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From the athletic -

  • While relations with Potter were never hostile, key senior players were increasingly sceptical and felt he was out of his depth
  • Some referred to him as “Harry” or “Hogwarts” behind his back, while some team selections caused confusion
  • So bloated had Chelsea’s first-team squad become that some players had to sit on the floor during team meetings while others changed for training in the corridor
  • Some training sessions had to involve a 9v9 game on top of the usual 11v11 such is the size of the squad
  • Todd Boehly may draw the focus but Behdad Eghbali is the real power behind the throne at Stamford Bridge and some considered the presence of the owners, watching first-hand so often from the sidelines at training, to be unnerving, even though Potter had no issue with it
  • Eyebrows were raised at the head coach’s pledge to try and win the “f****** Champions League” at a recent meeting with supporters, a statement that seemed out of character
  • The hierarchy acted when, backed up by data, they determined the team was showing no evidence of progress
 

TheReligion

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The only things that have actually been said about this in the media:

- Severance pay is unrelated to contract length (Law & Ornstein)
- Severance pay will be 'significant' (Guardian)
- Severance pay will be around £13M (Daily Mail)

I don't know about you but to me a £13M payoff for 7 months work represents a very signficiant amount and will just about treble his earnings from the club.

The current interim coach Bruno Saltor (Potter's ex-assistant) also said 'Graham and the club both thought it was the right call' when talking about the sack in yesterday's press conference so it seems he didn't even want to fight for his job and instead agreed himself it was time to go.

But your imagination says he's taking at least half of the contract so maybe we'll take that as a fact instead.
Forgive me for being a bit skeptical about the usual Chelsea mouthpieces getting damage limitation pieces from the club.
 

SirReginald

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Forgive me for being a bit skeptical about the usual Chelsea mouthpieces getting damage limitation pieces from the club.
Couldn’t care less how much he is paid off but if it happens to be correct then i don’t know why you’d argue about it. Such a pointless topic of debate really.
 

ZolaWasMagic

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Overriding sense when listening to pundits etc talking about this sacking, is that it's happened about a month too late, at least. Not one of them has thought it was ever the right fit, job is too big for him
 

Mb194dc

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Some serious comedy in those points above.

So we had 40 players in first team training? 11v11 and 9v9 at the same time? Lunacy.

Yet put together those 40 players could barely finish their dinner let alone finish chances in the box...

Potter just the scapegoat pretty much, any manager would struggle. We've lost players who contributed 50 goals odd in all comps last summer (Lukaku, Werner, Jorgingo, Rudi, Alonso). Replacements been shite bar Enzo.

It's the owners I'm afraid. Squad needs 15 players ish out this summer and goal scorers in.
 

Rnd898

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Overriding sense when listening to pundits etc talking about this sacking, is that it's happened about a month too late, at least. Not one of them has thought it was ever the right fit, job is too big for him
It's a tricky one. Sacking him in February would probably have been seen as harsh, with the club having just gotten plenty of reinforcements from the market in January and not even allowing for a proper chance to show what he can do with them.

After February there was that short-lived resurgence with three wins in a row, including the comeback victory against Dortmund, which probably earned him an extra month in the job but falling back to mediocre results and performances both before and after the international break was just too much.

No complaints about the timing if you ask me. He was given the opportunity to turn things around and for a while it looked like it might even happen but in the end it turned out to be just a false dawn so he finally got the boot.
 

horsechoker

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Some serious comedy in those points above.

So we had 40 players in first team training? 11v11 and 9v9 at the same time? Lunacy.

Yet put together those 40 players could barely finish their dinner let alone finish chances in the box...

Potter just the scapegoat pretty much, any manager would struggle. We've lost players who contributed 50 goals odd in all comps last summer (Lukaku, Werner, Jorgingo, Rudi, Alonso). Replacements been shite bar Enzo.

It's the owners I'm afraid. Squad needs 15 players ish out this summer and goal scorers in.
2 of those are defenders and the 2 strikers were far from good enough. Its alarming with that considered you haven't been able to replace them.
 

roseguy64

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees that creating some some of ideal heuristic path for managers to take on their way to the top is nothing but nonsensical.
This. That whole argument that filled pages was just a waste of time.
 

roseguy64

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Not only you got a owner that is playing games but if players didn't respect manager they should been thrown out. Simple.
That's not how it works. You have to earn the respect of the players.

They'll give you a chance but if it looks like you don't know what you're on about then you'll lose them. Manager or not, they won't respect you.
 

Sir Erik ten Hag

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Brighton perspective here. Enormous amount of schadenfreude from most, truthfully myself included.

Potter leaving was understandable from his perspective. A huge step up in status, massive salary, chance to work with some genuinely elite players and potentially win trophies. Most Brighton fans, understanding Potter’s limitations, found the winning trophies aspect very unlikely and knew Chelsea fans and board would have to be very patient with Potter.

Albion fans at the time took it very badly for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the timing was a nightmare for us a handful of games into the season - and just when things were finally starting to click. Potter had some very rough spells with us where we simply couldn’t score/win and the supporters (in the main) remained patient. The moment he finally achieved a level of consistent good results to match performances, he was off like a shot to the first big club to show interest.

Secondly, he took pretty much the entire coaching staff with him. Having a big entourage/team is normal, but it’s less normal to take key staff who were here long before the manager joined. Bruno, for example, is a club legend, former captain, with a literal mural of his likeness in the heart of town. Ben Roberts, considered in the industry as one of the most talented goalkeeping coaches in the business was poached too. These weren’t Potter’s guys, it left a very bad taste.

Along with Chelsea’s poaching of Paul Winstanley (our transfer guru), the signing of Cucurella (who refused to play or train unless he was sold) it has made Brighton fans certainly not big admirers of Chelsea’s model. The model seeming to be “What would Brighton do?”.

Thirdly, Potter made some snarky comments and was rather thin skinned during his time here. When not sucking through his teeth, bigging up every single opposition team to parodic levels or saying “it is what it is”, he was known to make little barbed comments to/about the fans. For example, he infamously said that Brighton fans “need a history lesson”. This was in response to a 0-0 draw at home to Leeds, where some fans showed frustration at failing to score. Incidentally, it was our worst going scoring and points run in our top flight history, so I suspect it was Graham who didn’t know his history on this occasion. A couple more minor slights while being Chelsea manager weren’t missed by Brighton fans either.

The strangest thing about this is that is has happened identically to how most fans predicted. He was never going to get three years just to reach the level the club was already at, but doing his way. This was one of the most predictable managerial failures in PL history. Wrong manager for the wrong club at the wrong time.
So he’s like a Lukaku among managers?
 

bringbackbebe

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From the athletic -
  • While relations with Potter were never hostile, key senior players were increasingly sceptical and felt he was out of his depth
  • Some referred to him as “Harry” or “Hogwarts” behind his back, while some team selections caused confusion
  • So bloated had Chelsea’s first-team squad become that some players had to sit on the floor during team meetings while others changed for training in the corridor
  • Some training sessions had to involve a 9v9 game on top of the usual 11v11 such is the size of the squad
  • Todd Boehly may draw the focus but Behdad Eghbali is the real power behind the throne at Stamford Bridge and some considered the presence of the owners, watching first-hand so often from the sidelines at training, to be unnerving, even though Potter had no issue with it
  • Eyebrows were raised at the head coach’s pledge to try and win the “f****** Champions League” at a recent meeting with supporters, a statement that seemed out of character
  • The hierarchy acted when, backed up by data, they determined the team was showing no evidence of progress
The points in bold above aren't really Potter's fault & points to a far more serious administrative breakdown. Too much money + lack of vision + lack of policy + lack of qualified personnel. Their problems are not going to end with just Potter's sacking, unless things change drastically.
 

FootballHQ

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Think West Ham would be the best current fit for him in premier league but assume Moyes is staying on regardless of what happens in the final.
 

Gabriel Djemba-Bebe

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Would be a smart move for Palace. He's shown he can overachieve at a medium sized club with a limited budget. Might even make Palace an exciting team to watch for the first time in recent memory.