Graham Potter | turns down Ajax job

I think a lot of the generic jibes are way wide of the mark: out of his depth, found his level, deer in the headlights etc etc.

As far as I could see they looked exactly like his Brighton side: nice football, controlled games, created plenty of half chances but couldn’t score for toffee. At Brighton there always seemed to be the possibility that he hadn’t got the right forwards, but the exact same thing happening with totally different ones (good or otherwise) at Chelsea suggests that maybe it’s his system that’s at fault. I saw nothing to suggest that the players hadn’t wholly bought into his management.

I’m not writing him off as a “fraud” but I do think he needs to reflect on this rather than just blame Boehly and his incompetence. Otherwise it will continue to be a problem whatever the level he’s at.
 
Vault Dweller said:
Between £40-50 mill is what I have seen due to contract that was signed, term of deal left plus some other contributing factors.

But fair enough, genuinely didn't think it could be that high. Would definitely never work again if it was! :lol:
Click to expand...

That's been debunked by Ornstein and Matt Law:

"Potter is believed to have taken the news, delivered face-to-face at the training ground, in an incredibly professional manner, and has agreed a severance package unrelated to the five-year deal he signed when he replaced the sacked Thomas Tuchel last September."

https://theathletic.com/4370690/2023/04/03/ornstein-column-graham-potter-chelsea/
 
Kepa

James
Koulibaly
Badiashile
Chillwell

Kante
Fernandez
Kovacic

Madueke
Felix
Mudryk

Nice simple 433 with Felix as a false 9 and lighting pace in the wings. Solid enough at the back with Kante protecting. It shouldn’t be the case that some random on the internet Can pick a team that functions better than what a PL manager decided on. Cucurella at LCB with chillwell at LWB is a sackable offence on its own.
 
They weren't wrong to sack him, still think he's a really good manager. Chelsea mid-season after the somewhat surprising sacking of a popular coach was just not the right time for that move at all.
 
He'd be a great pickup for Leicester. Although maybe they should go for a short term relegation specialist initially.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
That's been debunked by Ornstein and Matt Law:

"Potter is believed to have taken the news, delivered face-to-face at the training ground, in an incredibly professional manner, and has agreed a severance package unrelated to the five-year deal he signed when he replaced the sacked Thomas Tuchel last September."

https://theathletic.com/4370690/2023/04/03/ornstein-column-graham-potter-chelsea/
Click to expand...

Yeah reading through it all properly on the Athletic the now with lunch.

Still doesn't amend my thinking, if I was earning £40 million for anything I'd retire and never work again :lol:
 


I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
 
Screenshot-20230403-144028.png


Can we feck this guy off before Liverpool too?
 
SilentWitness said:


I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
Click to expand...

Journalists need to stop using this line as some sort of valid reason for the manager going. Even if the players hadn't heard of him, it shouldn't be a reason to get sacked.
 
SilentWitness said:


I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
Click to expand...

I don't think he helped himself with the way he operated, though. His press conferences, musings post game, seeming randomness of some of his on field choices probably didn't lend themselves to garnering a lot of credibility with the players. Ultimately I doubt they wrote him off because he was called Potter and isn't well known outside of the UK.
 
SilentWitness said:


I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
Click to expand...

It can be both.

Same with Moyes. From the stories Evra/Rio etc told of his time here, the players never bought into him and second guessed his every move, and a lot of them acted quite childishly, but he also was palpably intimidated by the role and shrunk from the pressure.
 
simonhch said:
It’s irrelevant if it’s in one lump sum tbh. 50m is 50m whether paid out immediately or over several years. It’s still an extra 44m paid out for someone no longer in your employ. Either way, it’s all hypothetical. I think it’s likely Potter will end up getting something like 15-20m compensation in total as he’ll find a new job and a deal will be reached. I imagine if Chelsea paid him the full value of his contract, they could also demand he not work for anyone else for the next 4.5 years, which he won’t want.
Click to expand...
No, because as I've literally just said in the previous post, if we kept him on technically as an employee we're only paying him until he finds a new club and could even ask for compensation from said club as Bayern will reportedly do for us if we approach Nagelsmann.

But yes, by all reports there's a clause that means he's not getting close to the full payout.
 
crossy1686 said:
You mean like he did at Bayern? I wouldn't worry about him one bit.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it would probably end in disaster.

"Nein Boehly! Ich nein du dummer Amerikaner! Du kannst nicht 4-4-3 spielen, du elfen-penis."

"YeeeeeeHAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!!!" *pew pew*
 
duffer said:
There's zero chance any Chelsea players had to "look up who Graham Potter was". Complete and utter bollocks.
Click to expand...
A few of the new foreign arrivals maybe. I couldn't tell you every la liga manager but that shouldn't undermine their credentials.
 
horsechoker said:
A few of the new foreign arrivals maybe. I couldn't tell you every la liga manager but that shouldn't undermine their credentials.
Click to expand...

I don't know all the la Liga managers either but then again, I don't play for a la Liga team.

There's zero chance any Chelsea players didn't know who Potter was when he joined Chelsea.
 
When you stupidly give players 8 year contracts, they’re obviously not going to take any manager that seriously. The power of the club is firmly with the players at this stage and it will be hard to wrestle that power away unless they absolutely nail their next appointment, which is doubtful.

I think Potter will be given another chance at one of the top 6 clubs in the future. Perhaps Spurs or maybe Liverpool if Klopp departs the club in the next few years. Potter is a good manager who needs a strong club structure in place, which was clearly lacking at Chelsea.
 
duffer said:
I don't know all the la Liga managers either but then again, I don't play for a la Liga team.

There's zero chance any Chelsea players didn't know who Potter was when he joined Chelsea.
Click to expand...
Hmm didn't you also say there was zero chance Potter would be fired this season
 
SilentWitness said:


I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
Click to expand...


Any premiership footballer who had "to look up who Potter was" and coudn't take him seriously because he had the same surname as Harry Potter, really is a bit thick and self centred.

Surely it's their job to know other players and managers, especially those in the same league.
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
Why did they let him spend so much money? The new manager might want different players altogether
Click to expand...
I'd be surprised if the manager at Chelsea is much more than a voice within a discussion on transfers.

I also don't think it's Todd Boehly googling players from Shakhtar Donetsk and pursuing them of his own volition like some seem to suggest.

I guess there's some sort of transfer personnel that are putting the data and reccomendations together and then the manager is having an input (or maybe not) and then Todd does the negotiating.
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
Why did they let him spend so much money? The new manager might want different players altogether
Click to expand...
Mainly because he wasn't buying the players (they have a recruitment system, of which the manager is only a fairly minor part. Think Brighton, particularly since they imported half their recruitment team, but far less coherent, with Boehly the deciding voice and doing his best Woodward impersonation) . There's probably a good squad there medium-term if they can bring in another 3 and get rid of...another 14.
 
The Boy said:
Any premiership footballer who had "to look up who Potter was" and coudn't take him seriously because he had the same surname as Harry Potter, really is a bit thick and self centred.

Surely it's their job to know other players and managers, especially those in the same league.
Click to expand...
It's the PL. Surely clubs have people specifically employed to do these jobs for them, and give them the gist of it. I can't imagine millionaire footballers knowing every single manager for every club. They're professionals who already spend 12-16 hours of their day on their job, why would they bother googling other teams on their spare time.
 
SilentWitness said:


I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
Click to expand...


To be fair, I expect he had to Google a few of them, too - hard to keep track when there are new faces appearing in your dressing room at such a rate of knots.
 
The Boy said:
Any premiership footballer who had "to look up who Potter was" and coudn't take him seriously because he had the same surname as Harry Potter, really is a bit thick and self centred.

Surely it's their job to know other players and managers, especially those in the same league.
Click to expand...

This is the same kind of self-serving 'behind the scenes revelation' that gets wheeled out every time one of these managers come up against a chaotic set-up, mismatched squad and the rest. For whatever reason, Potter's definitely made blunders beyond ordinary gambles (much like ETH, and indeed Klopp/Guardiola in their first years when still trying to shape respective squads) with decisions even casual observers could see were likely to backfire. But you can't win unless you're winning - Potter's shown himself to be smart, adaptable, able to manage in a progressive style in terms of play and in terms of 'people handling' at various levels.

Aside from not having the chance to play in Europe with Brighton (he did with his Swedish club and achieved some pretty good results), largely because of where they were starting from and concentrating on the league rather than cups, the relative toughness of the Pl etc, his relative achievement was probably up there with Nagelsmann pre Bayern, and probably slightly more than Poch pre Spurs. Some of the results have been terrible and understandably created pressure, but this retroactive narrative about Potter never being accomplished enough or having enough to show on his CV to deal with Chelsea players in principle is pretty weak/tendentious etc...
 
SilentWitness said:


I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
Click to expand...

Which players would have had to look him up? Seems a bit far fetched.

Players competing in the same league as him for a considerable period of time (or in Cucurellas case playing under him) would have obviously known about him so that leaves two possibly candidates (Kouli and Zakaria).
 
UweBein said:
I can imagine that Boehly liked him because he is a native speaker. American owners do not deal with foreign coaches. Also they have quite a different approach to deal with managers and coaches.
It might also explain why they fell out with Tuchel so quickly. Tuchel probably came across as very direct and brazen - whereas he simply lacked the ability to communicate in a charming and nuanced way.
Click to expand...

This is so dumb!
 
Dancfc said:
Which players would have had to look him up? Seems a bit far fetched.

Players competing in the same league as him for a considerable period of time (or in Cucurellas case playing under him) would have obviously known about him so that leaves two possibly candidates (Kouli and Zakaria).
Click to expand...

jonjo shelvey
 
SilentWitness said:
I bet a lot of people will look at this and think “Potter is a joke”, “Too small for big players” etc., rather than footballers are dickheads and stupid.
Click to expand...

I think it's just Delaney being dick as usual and pulled all this out of his arse.
 
B. Munich said:
You forgot the controversies about Abramovich and the fire sale of the club which surely had an impact on the team as well
Click to expand...

Seriously. Tuchel had to manage in extremely difficult situations when Chelsea were thrown into turmoil - Remember this for example?

On top of it, TT basically had to face the press for weeks and address the Ukraine situation with senior figures completely absent.

If anybody deserved time it was him - as he proved his ceiling was extremely high (smacking @adexkola favorite coach 3x in a row on the way to the FA Cup / CL double)

The thing with giving a manager time is that it works out if it's the right manager. If you're giving the wrong person time then all you're doing with the time is wasting it.

I don't have anything against Potter, but this needed to have happened ages ago as he was completely out of depth.
 
Last edited:
The Boy said:
Any premiership footballer who had "to look up who Potter was" and coudn't take him seriously because he had the same surname as Harry Potter, really is a bit thick and self centred.

Surely it's their job to know other players and managers, especially those in the same league.
Click to expand...

I have met and dealt with many ex, and current players in my line of work, and believe me, an awful lot of them are 'thick' and almost all of them are self centred.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.