Time is perhaps the most valuable commodity in modern football, but for Chelsea boss Graham Potter, outside noise suggests he may be running out of it.
A 1-0 loss at Stamford Bridge to the managerless Southampton, who sit in last on the ladder, cranked up the pressure on the embattled boss as the team were booed off the park and several fans called for Potter’s head to roll.
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The defeat to the lowly Saints also meant Chelsea have now won two matches from their last 14 in all competitions and, more worryingly, fired blanks in eight of their last 13 games.
However, Potter remained defiant in his post-match interview, stating he is not the “problem” when it comes to Chelsea’s recent woes and the loss could have been down to team changes.
Potter’s explanations left former England international Gabriel Agbonlahor and ex-Spurs midfielder Jamie O’Hara flabbergasted, especially since the 47-year-old oversaw a staggering January spending spree of just over $AUD550 million.
“He should be sacked for that post-match interview,” Agbonlahor told talkSPORT.
“‘We’ve had to make some changes because of the Champions League, we had to bring in some different players in against a settled and organised side.’
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“What are you talking about? They haven’t got a manager! You’re playing against a team that are in disarray that can’t get back-to-back wins together, and you’re complaining about what?
“You had to bring [Mykhailo] Mudryk off the bench on. You had to start [Joao] Felix, are you joking me?”
O’Hara added: “Unbelievable. And do you know what? If this was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United, there would be riots right now in terms of how bad this team is.
“Graham Potter is getting away with murder.”
Although Agbonlahor and O’Hara may remain adamant in their view Potter must be cast aside by Chelsea owner Todd Boehly for the recent struggles, a glance of their games through a different lens since the World Cup break paints a somewhat different picture.
In the nine games since, Chelsea have had the higher xG (expected goals) figure in all but two games, with fixtures against Manchester City and West Ham the outliers, per UnderStat.
Even against Southampton, Potter’s side had an xG of 1.62 compared to Southampton’s 0.62, with the Saints’ goal coming via a stunning free-kick from set-piece wizard James Ward-Prowse.
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With the underlying numbers somewhat providing evidence that ‘Project Potter’ isn’t as doom and gloom as some may perceive, Chelsea fans should take note of how long the manager of Boehly’s other sporting venture has lasted as an indicator of his stance on coaches.
Boehly bought one of the most famous franchises in Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in 2012.
Despite mammoth investments over the years, the Dodgers failed to secure a coveted World Series under Boehly’s ownership until 2020 when the Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays to end a 32-year drought.
The victory came under the management of Dave Roberts, who was appointed in 2016 and had failed twice in the World Series before it was third time lucky.
Understandably, the MLB season lasts a whopping 162 games compared to the cutthroat Premier League’s 38, so they are two very different worlds in the length of seasons, not to mention the other intricacies of the respective sports.
But, as Boehly has shown with Roberts, he will stick with the man who he believes can deliver silverware.
Given the American forked out a reported $38 million in compensation to Brighton for Potter, a world record fee for a manager, he may not be inclined to pull the trigger so soon unlike his predecessor Roman Abramovich would have.
Another element of Potter’s plea for a stay of execution is the fact his success at Brighton did not happen overnight.
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Instead, it was careful recruitment and time that allowed the former Swansea boss to gradually haul the Seagulls up the table as Potter moulded the team to his desire.
It is a point Manchester United great Gary Neville was keen to stress, especially given the bloated team Potter has inherited that resulted in summer signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang left out of the Blues’ Champions League squad.
“Graham Potter is a fantastic coach but I get the feeling watching him that he would like to build a pattern of play with a group of players on a consistent basis and he’s got 33 players staring at him right now,” the former England international said on The Gary Neville Podcast.
“These aren’t junior players, they are senior internationals. I can’t imagine what that must be like. I was a manager for a very short period and we had 22 or 23 players at Valencia, so you’re looking at 11 players there who aren’t going to play every week.
“Potter has got more than 20 players that are not going to play. If they were all fit, how do you even get them all into a training session? A good training session would be between 16-20 players.
“So to have 33 players there, that isn’t right. It just isn’t right. They needed to offload some players for Potter and take that pressure away from him a little bit.
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“It’s been chaotic and a little mismanaged under the new owners. They’ve invested heavily and put their money where their mouth is but it won’t be a successful project when you’ve got 33 players there all looking at the manager and a manager who wants to build a measured project.”
Potter is evidently under no illusions this season has not been as successful as he would have liked as Chelsea sit in 10th on the Premier League ladder and are out of both domestic cup competitions.
The Stamford Bridge faithful have and will continue to loudly remind Potter results have not been good enough too, with pundits ever ready to pile in.
But, as Roberts proved with the Boehly-owned Dodgers, Potter will need time for the project to bear fruit.
The big question is whether he will get the required time before he becomes the tenth Premier League boss sent to the managerial scrap heap this season.
