12:58 PM ET
Seven weeks ago, Graham Potter left Brighton & Hove Albion for a team lower in the Premier League table.
Months after leading the Seagulls to their best-ever top-division finish — ninth place in 2021-22, just five points away from qualifying for European competition, with late-season wins over Arsenal , Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United — Potter’s team had started the new season brilliantly, beating United again and walloping Leicester City 5-2 on the way to fourth in the table. Chelsea was only three points behind them in sixth, but had just fired Champions League winner Thomas Tuchel after a disastrous start to this season’s European campaign.
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The pull of the top competition was evidently too much: Potter left the Sussex coast for London to take over Chelsea’s high-end, low-cohesiveness roster , and order has more-or-less been restored since.
On Saturday, Potter’s Blues will visit Brighton, having risen to fifth in the table (fourth in points per game) and clinched first place in their Champions League group. Their next loss will be Potter’s first. Brighton, meanwhile, has labored under new manager Roberto de Zerbi, getting smited once again by the god of finishing and falling to ninth.
Potter and De Zerbi are two of quite a few coaches to have taken over for fired or departed coaches in the first three months of the season. Four jobs at Champions League clubs have already come open and been filled, and it’s not yet November. So let’s check in on how some of the more big-name managers are performing in their new roles.
JUMP TO: Roberto de Zerbi (Brighton) | Marco Rose (RB Leipzig) | Jorge Sampaoli (Sevilla ) | Xabi Alonso (Bayer Leverkusen) | Others
Graham Potter (Chelsea) Hired: Sept. 7
Matches: 9 (6 wins, 2.33 points per game)
Goals average: 1.8 for, 0.4 against
xG average: 1.3 for, 0.9 against
Primary changes in odds (per FiveThirtyEight’s SPI ): From 51% to 100% to advance to the Champions League knockout rounds, from 35% to 50% to finish in the Premier League top four
One of the most common impulses when making a coaching change, no matter the sport, is to hire the opposite of your ex. In terms of temperament, Chelsea may have done just that, replacing the mercurial Tuchel with the more laid-back Potter, but they also replaced a tinkerer with a tinkerer.
Tuchel had deployed five starting formations in his seven matches this season (five with three at the back, two with four), with injury and restlessness both causing him to shuffle his lineups constantly. Potter has done exactly the same thing: Nine matches have seen six starting formations, though he’s begun to settle in. Over the last four matches, Potter has stuck primarily with something close to a 3-4-2-1.
Almost no one on the Chelsea roster can say that Potter hasn’t given them a chance thus far — no one but Edouard Mendy (and attacker Hakim Ziyech ), anyway. The 30-year old goalkeeper was Tuchel’s first choice and a stalwart on 2021’s Champions League-winning squad. But he battled form issues late last season, and an injury meant that Potter had to go with Kepa Arrizabalaga between the posts. Kepa’s brilliant form has since necessitated that he remain in the lineup. He’s the only player to have recorded 100% of the available minutes under Potter. Incredibly, no one else has topped even 80%.
Roberto de Zerbi (Brighton) Hired: Sept. 8
Matches: 5 (0 wins, 0.4 points per game)
Goals average: 0.8 for, 1.8 against
xG average: 1.3 for, 1.1 against
Primary changes in odds: From 25% to 12% to finish in the Premier League top four
Potter’s Brighton served as a long-term example for the predictive power of xG in 2020-21. The Gulls finished 16th in the Premier League despite boasting the fifth-best xG differential in the league; they turned 1.5 xG per match into just 1.05 goals and lost 11 matches by one goal with 14 draws. It sure seemed like they should have produced better results and the following season, they did. They still weren’t excellent in the finishing department (1.43 xG per match, 1.11 goals), but they improved enough to flip some close matches — they went from averaging 1.05 points per game in matches decided by 0-1 goals to a more normal 1.43 — and finish ninth.
Perhaps the same fate eventually awaits De Zerbi. The former Shakhtar Donetsk manager helped to engineer a thrilling 3-3 draw at Liverpool in his debut, but in four matches since, Brighton has turned 62 shots worth 4.9 xG into just one goal. Against Brentford and Nottingham Forest , they attempted 40 shots to opponents’ 10 and got outscored by a combined 2-0. Leandro Trossard has scored four times under De Zerbi; no one else has found the net in 53 combined shot attempts.
If points were distributed based on xG totals — every nerd’s dream, am I right?? — they would have earned about eight points in De Zerbi’s five matches. Instead, they produced just two and have fallen from fourth to ninth in the Premier League.
Hired: Sept. 8
Matches: 10 (6 wins, 2.0 points per game)
Goals average: 2.2 for, 1.4 against
xG average: 2.0 for, 1.4 against
Primary changes in odds: From 34% to 73% to advance to the Champions League knockout rounds, from 31% to 40% to finish in the Bundesliga top four
The last three years have been an absolute roller-coaster for the 46-year old Rose. After two successful seasons at FC Salzburg — there are no other types of seasons there — he found immediate success at Borussia Monchengladbach . They were first in the Bundesliga table at the near-midway point of the season, and with wins in each of their last three matches they were able to fend off Bayer Leverkusen and others to snare fourth place and a Champions League bid for the first time in four years.
They advanced to the Champions League knockout rounds in 2020-21 and spent most of the first half of the season in the Bundesliga top four again, but after Gladbach announced he would be leaving for Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season, the team fell apart and finished 10th. And his lone season with BVB was beset by injury and inconsistency. Borussia Dortmund finished second in the Bundesliga but finished well back of what seemed like a vulnerable version of Bayern Munich , and in Europe they were knocked out of the Champions League group stages and quickly bowed out of the Europa League after allowing six goals in two matches against Rangers . It seemed like he had misplaced all the magic from his possession-and-passion style, and BVB dismissed him.
Once you’ve coached a top-level German team, however, it seems you will always have a job, and when RBL fired Domenico Tedesco after a terribly disappointing start — only one win in their first five Bundesliga matches, plus a shocking 4-1 home loss to Shakhtar Donetsk to begin Champions League play — they elected to bring Rose back to his hometown.
Jorge Sampaoli (Sevilla ) Hired: Oct. 5
Matches: 6 (2 wins, 1.5 points per game)
Goals average: 1.3 for, 1.0 against
xG average: 0.8 for, 1.5 against
Primary changes in odds: from 16% to 0% to advance to the Champions League knockout rounds, from 2% to 3% to finish in LaLiga top four, from 13% to 9% to suffer relegation
There were some warning signs last year. Julen Lopetegui led Sevilla to three consecutive fourth-place finishes in LaLiga, plus a Europa League crown in 2020, but they won only five of their last 18 league matches last season and finished fourth only because of an early cushion they had built over rival Real Betis . Meanwhile, they failed to advance in the Champions League and bowed out of the Europa League in the round of 16.
FiveThirtyEight projected Sevilla seventh in the league heading into 2022-23, and seventh quickly began to feel optimistic. They pulled just five points from their first seven league matches and got outscored by a combined 8-1 in their first three Champions League matches too. They were already 10 points out of the top four when Lopetegui was fired on Oct. 5.
Sampaoli is a ridiculously seasoned manager — the 62-year old has managed 13 different clubs now, plus two national teams (Chile , Argentina ) — and put together a lovely performance as Marseille ‘s manager last year. It was a little strange that he accepted this job, if only because he had left Marseille in part out of frustration that they weren’t making more offseason moves and landed with a club that didn’t make many offseason moves. They sold the rights to center-backs Jules Kounde and Diego Carlos to Barcelona and Aston Villa, respectively, for a combined $89 million, replaced them with Tanguy Nianzou and Marcao for $34 million, added a few loanees, and that was about it. Sampaoli has stabilized things … to a degree. This being Sevilla, they’re still drawing in half their matches, but they have lost only once since he took over.
Xabi Alonso (Bayer Leverkusen) Hired: Oct. 5
Matches: 5 (one win, 1.0 points per game)
Goals average: 1.8 for, 2.4 against
xG average: 1.6 for, 2.0 against
Primary changes in odds: From 44% to 0% to advance to the Champions League knockout rounds, from 10% to 5% to finish in the Bundesliga top four, from 6% to 9% to suffer relegation
What a terribly disappointing season it’s been at the BayArena. After a rousing third-place Bundesliga finish last season, Bayer Leverkusen retained most of its core, including star attackers Patrik Schick and Moussa Diaby , and entered the season with sky-high expectations. They face-planted out of the gate, losing to third-division Elversberg in the DFB-Pokal and winning only once in their first eight matches in all competitions. A 2-0 home upset of Atletico Madrid brought hope, but they quickly followed that with losses to Bayern Munich and Porto by a combined 6-0. Manager Gerardo Seoane went from up-and-coming to unemployed in two months.
To the club’s potential credit, Leverkusen didn’t panic and bring in a low-upside veteran to steer them to safety. Instead, they aimed for upside in bringing in the 40-year old Alonso, a long-admired leader on the pitch whose only managerial experience was with Real Sociedad ‘s B-team. His debut was an excellent 4-0 stomping of last-place Schalke 04 4, but the competition has stepped up since then, and Leverkusen’s old problems remain. They were outscored by Porto and Eintracht Frankfurt by a combined 8-1, they needed a late goal to save a 2-2 home draw against 14th-place Wolfsburg, and they needed a late penalty save to hold onto a 2-2 road draw with Atletico.
Thiago Motta (Bologna ) Hired: Sept. 12
The 40-year old former Paris Saint-Germain midfielder took over after a poor start for former manager (and leukemia patient) Sinisa Mihajlovic; he’s known for an aggressive, attacking philosophy, and they got picked apart by Juventus (3-0) and Napoli (3-2), but in their last two matches they’ve beaten Cagliari in the Italian Cup (1-0) and Lecce (2-0) in league play. Progress?
Raffaele Palladino (Monza ) Hired: Sept. 13
From a pure before-and-after standpoint, Palladino might be the best hire thus far. Monza had one point six matches into their first Serie A season, and they won three in a row — including a 1-0 defeat of Juventus — after he came aboard. They’ve lost their last two league matches, but that burst cut their odds of relegation in half, per FiveThirtyEight. They’re currently at just 20%.
Thomas Letsch (Bochum) Hired: Sept. 22
If Palladino hasn’t provided the biggest shot in the arm, Letsch has. Bochum’s odds of relegation are still steep (currently 58%), but they hadn’t beaten a Bundesliga opponent since May 6 when he took over, and in the last three weeks they’ve taken down two of the hottest teams in the league, Eintracht Frankfurt (3-0 on Oct. 8) and Union Berlin (2-1 last Sunday). They also advanced in the DFB-Pokal.
Dejan Stankovic (Sampdoria ) Hired: Oct. 6
After resigning from Serbia’s Crvena Zvezda in August, Stankovic came aboard to attempt to save Sampdoria from relegation. The good news: They finally won their first league match of the season on Monday. Bad news: It took until Oct. 24 to win their first league match of the season, and their odds of relegation are still pretty high (45%).
Laurent Blanc (Lyon ) Hired: Oct. 9
The former PSG manager (and World Cup-winning defender) took over for Peter Bosz after a mediocre start, and he’s only been in charge for two matches thus far: a 3-2 loss with Rennes and a 2-1 win over Montpellier . The coming weeks will define Lyon’s season — their next three matches are against sixth-place Lille , fifth-place Marseille and last year’s fifth-place finisher, Nice . Now’s the time to jump back into the Champions League race.
Jorge Almiron (Elche ) Hired: Oct. 12
After a year away, Almiron returned for his second stint at last-place Elche two weeks ago. One cannot say he hasn’t attacked the challenge with vigor: In three matches, Elche has doubled its point total (from two to four) with a pair of 2-2 draws against Valencia and Espanyol . They’ve still got tall odds to overcome (68% chance of relegation), but they’re throwing some haymakers at least.
Salvatore Bocchetti (Hellas Verona ) Hired: Oct. 13
The 35-year old only recently retired from playing, and he got promoted from youth coach to full-on manager after the club dismissed Gabriele Cioffi. They have suffered competitive 2-1 losses to AC Milan and Sassuolo to start his tenure, continuing two season-long trends: decent offense and terribly leaky defense.
Unai Emery (Aston Villa) Hired: This week
Emery is a brave man with “something to prove.” The former Arsenal and PSG boss leaves a Villarreal club with a 33% shot at a top-four finish in LaLiga and takes over a disorganized Villa team with a 9% chance at relegation from the Premier League.
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