Chelsea have sacked manager Graham Potter after a 0-2 home defeat to Aston Villa. But a look at his six months at the club shows where it all went wrong for him.
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00:00 Following defeat to Aston Villa with the team sitting 11th in the league and over 600 million
00:08 spent on new players, Chelsea's owners have sacked Graham Potter after less than 7 months
00:14 in the job.
00:15 What a f***ing mess.
00:16 Right, yes, hello everybody, Adam Cleary, 442, and not a year ago Graham Potter was
00:20 genuinely getting talked about as one of the most exciting emerging new managers in Europe,
00:24 he was linked with a host of top jobs, he got the Chelsea one, it felt like a really
00:27 good fit, and now he's gone.
00:29 It's over, finished, done.
00:31 But why?
00:32 Well I could massively overcomplicate this by talking about like wars and Americans and
00:36 all kinds of stuff like that, but if we just go to the pitch really quickly, I think I
00:39 can probably neatly illustrate it in a few minutes for you.
00:41 Right, here we are, the 14th of September, 2022, it's Graham Potter's first game in
00:47 charge, they're playing RB Salzburg in the Champions League and loads of big nerds like
00:51 me are tuning in because we're like "Ooo, wanna see what Potter does at Chelsea, ooo!"
00:55 And I know they're not quite the right shade of blue, look I haven't quite ordered the
00:57 Chelsea box yet, this is actually Man City, but just pretend, pretend.
01:01 And it's fairly straightforward, we've got Kepa in goal, we've got a back three of
01:04 Azpilicueta, Silva, Kukerea, Rhys James is over there at right wing back, we've got
01:08 Mount, Jorginho, Havertz is playing off of Bamiyang, but the really interesting thing
01:12 was that this is Raheem Sterling at left wing back.
01:15 And that caught a lot of people out, they were like "Oh, okay, okay, tricksy little
01:19 Potter, is he gonna try all his old Brighton tricks, hmm, fascinating."
01:23 One-one draw.
01:24 Now we just jump forward a couple of weeks to the 1st of October, Chelsea are away at
01:27 Crystal Palace, it's a win, Connor Gallagher scored, I'm sure you remember it, and they're
01:30 lining up like this.
01:31 The back three has gone, it's been replaced with a back four, we've got James, Silva,
01:35 Fafana and Chilwell there.
01:36 And in the middle we've got one of those box midfields you hear so much about, Kovacic
01:39 and Jorginho, they're sitting as a bit of a double pivot, and then you've got Havertz
01:42 and Mount who are sort of nominally playing in the wide spaces, but Potter wants them
01:46 really really narrow because he likes overloads in that area, so they end up being a bit of
01:50 a box.
01:51 Sterling's come all the way from right wing back, that didn't work and he's now playing
01:54 just off Bamiyang, either floating in behind or going beyond him.
01:57 It's very narrow and the reason it's narrow is because Potter likes this overload in the
02:00 middle and he knows in Chilwell and James he's got full backs who can get right the
02:03 way up the pitch, so it's still very attacking, it's still very dynamic, but it is completely
02:08 different.
02:09 Results aren't great for Chelsea at this part of the season, but they're certainly not terrible,
02:11 so let's jump forward another month.
02:13 Here we are to the 2nd of November now, Chelsea are at home to Dynamo Zigreb, it's a 2-1 win
02:18 and would you look at that, they've messed with it again.
02:20 Mendy's in goal rather than Kepa, we've got an almost entirely different back four now
02:24 with Azpilicueta, Chalaba, Koulibaly and it's only Chilwell who's kept his place.
02:28 Mounts drop back a bit to join Jorginho in the middle and they've now been joined by
02:31 Zakara.
02:32 And he's rejigged things up front, so Bamiyang and Sterling are a very conventional two except
02:36 they like to get into the wide areas and Havertz is playing just behind them in sort of a free
02:40 roll.
02:41 And they win, which is a really good result, but it's not a massively convincing performance,
02:44 I think it finishes 2-1.
02:45 And at this point of the season, that's when we broke for the World Cup and Chelsea were
02:48 8th in the table at that point, which sounds not great, but they're only one point behind
02:52 Liverpool, the results were starting to come in, things were starting to settle down a
02:55 bit so it wasn't the end of the world.
02:57 And this is almost how they set up for their first game back as well.
03:00 Kepa's in goal, James, Koulibaly, Silva and Kaguire look fairly settled as a back four,
03:04 Mounts, Zakara and Jorginho, they've all kept their place.
03:07 And the front three, that's where the only tweaks have gone on, Havertz is now playing
03:10 as the most advanced one with Sterling and Kunicic kind of playing a sort of deeper,
03:15 narrower tens.
03:16 But then the transfer window happens and Chelsea go absolutely bananas.
03:22 Some £300 million is spent on bringing David Fofana, Benoit Badia Shelley, Jao Felix, Andre
03:28 Santos, Mikhalo Mudrik, Nani Manduque, Malle Gusto and Enzo Fernandez to Stamford Bridge
03:35 with Jorginho the only senior player leaving to make any room for them.
03:39 So let's quickly jump forward to Chelsea's first game after the January transfer window,
03:43 it's a disappointing 0-0 with Fulham and the 4-3-3, that still exists, it's still there,
03:48 but, and it's not wildly different from the team it had been, but now here's Badia Shelley
03:52 who needs to be factored in somehow, Enzo Fernandez and the way he plays, he's in the
03:56 starting 11, Mudrik, they've just spent a gajillion pounds on him, he has to start.
04:00 And this is where it all starts to unravel with Potter because Chelsea's performances
04:03 since the January transfer window, Chelsea fans themselves will tell you, have just been
04:08 all over the place.
04:09 Individual moments of brilliance as the quality of player just generally kind of makes something
04:13 happen anyway, but no cohesion, nothing really clicking, no real general idea of what it
04:19 is they're trying to do.
04:20 We jump forward to the first game in February, Leeds United again, they win but it's not
04:24 massively convincing and we're now at a really sort of simple 3-4-3 system.
04:28 Wesley Fofana, Koula Barley and Badia Shelley who've had virtually no game time as a unit,
04:33 they're the back three.
04:34 Enzo Fernandez is settling pretty well into the midfield it has to be said, and we've
04:37 got a front three of Sterling Havertz and Felix with Ruben Loftus-Cheek sort of over
04:42 in this right wing back position because the assumption will be that Sterling will move
04:45 into centre spaces and he can sort of go in there and just do a bit of playmaking.
04:49 Just to give a bit of context here because I know I said they won this match, this is
04:52 their 11th game after the World Cup and only their second win.
04:57 Things are not going well.
04:59 And finally this brings us to the straw that broke the camel's back, their first game in
05:02 April, the 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa and this is what they looked like.
05:06 James has come back into the team but not as a right wing back, as a right sided centre
05:10 back he's in there with Koulibaly and Kukerea.
05:12 This four across the middle is still Ruben Loftus-Cheek which isn't really working out
05:15 at that side.
05:16 Fernandez, who admittedly has been quite good, Kovacic and Ben Chilwell.
05:19 But the latest experiment up front is João Felix up top on his own with Mudrick and Havertz
05:23 in these sort of narrow positions to help create a box, except it's two players who
05:27 haven't really got any interest in dropping back into a box to create passing angles for
05:32 other people, that's not their game.
05:34 And you know exactly how this goes, they get roundly beat 2-0 by Aston Villa, they create
05:37 loads of chances out of seemingly nowhere, don't take any of them, get punished and they
05:41 sack Brain Potter literally the next day.
05:44 And if you even look at the chances they made in this game it kind of shows that it had
05:48 all completely broken down for them, because they're all the product of a little individual
05:51 bit of brilliance or decision rather than that's clearly what they're trying to do and
05:55 that's how they're getting a Villa.
05:57 And here's the best example, Kovacic gets the ball, there is absolutely zero movement
06:00 in front of him, they have four players strung along the edge of the box with clearly no
06:05 idea what it is they're supposed to be doing, he spots Chilwell out the corner of his eye,
06:09 plays a great pass and he nearly scores.
06:11 Answers like that happen when nobody knows what they're supposed to do and just kind
06:14 of go "uh, there, uh, you".
06:17 But the crucial thing is, Brain Potter has not been sacked as Chelsea boss because he
06:21 was making too many changes to the start of XI, because he couldn't settle on a team or
06:25 because he couldn't decide on a formation, because he was doing all that for two very
06:29 big reasons, that's an unfortunate hand gesture, and those reasons are why it was ultimately
06:33 probably just never ever going to work out.
06:36 And those reasons are, one, Chelsea have an absolutely enormous squad of players.
06:40 Chelsea have used 32 players in the Premier League alone this season and out of them you
06:46 probably only class really Hutchinson and Humphreys as like emerging breakthrough talents
06:50 getting a couple of minutes here and there, the rest of them are all senior members of
06:54 the squad.
06:55 Man City, just to give you a bit of context, they have used 21 and four of those are probably
06:58 classifiable as academy players coming through.
07:01 So he's made that many changes because he's just got that many players who need to play
07:05 football, like it's all well and good saying you should settle on a team and use the same
07:08 sort of core like 12 to 16 players, okay fine, but when you've got 30 senior pros in the
07:14 locker room, that is nearly half of the entire squad who will not like you.
07:18 And there is not a manager on the planet who could survive in a dressing room if 50% of
07:23 them hate him.
07:24 Which explains why he's changed the team so much at Chelsea, yes, but not why he's changed
07:28 the system so much and the reason for that is because Graham Potter believes massively,
07:32 more than anything else, in tactical flexibility.
07:35 He likes to work out the opposition like a little puzzle and then find ways to gain advantages
07:40 over them on the pitch through systems and structures.
07:43 And the problem is, you just can't have that kind of mindset or that kind of approach with
07:48 a really, really top club because the players aren't interested in that.
07:52 At Brighton he had a lot of players who weren't necessarily the greatest players in the world,
07:55 players who thought if I wasn't at Brighton in the Premier League, I might not even be
07:59 in the Premier League, so I'll do whatever I can to make it work.
08:02 And Potter just never really got to grips with that, like we saw Sterling in the left
08:05 wing back slot, but Pulisic also played there, Ziyech also played there, players who want
08:09 to be doing all their work at the top end of the pitch, playing effectively a defensive
08:13 position.
08:14 And it's not because the manager has identified untapped defensive potential in them, it's
08:17 because he thinks by putting them there, he can use that to create situations up the pitch
08:22 where they'll be able to score goals, but they've got to buy into that and they've got
08:26 to work at that, and when you're one of the best players in the world, you don't really
08:29 see the point.
08:30 And I mean there's other factors of course, like injuries haven't helped, James has been
08:33 out for a long time, he's dead important to them, Kante would have been a first pick you'd
08:36 think under Potter and he's just coming back from injury now, so it was kind of a perfect
08:40 storm really, of shit.
08:43 But it's done now I suppose, so let us know what you make of it all in the comments below.
08:46 Should Chelsea have sacked Potter, was he out of his depth, should they have just given
08:48 him more time, will he bounce back?
08:50 I think he'll go to Leicester personally, all opinions welcome, let me have them.
08:53 In the meantime though, thank you so much for watching, new 442 issue in stores now-ish
08:58 by the way, go grab yourself a whole bunch of it, but until the next time a manager is
09:02 sacked, which at this rate will be later this week, I've been Adam Cleary and I'll see you
09:06 soon.