Graham Potter | turns down Ajax job

Still doesn't look prepared for a big job and arguably took on one of the toughest at the wrong time, unfortunately. As a United fan I hope he doesn't find his feet at Chelsea but I'd also hate to see a young, promising manager fail so quickly.
 
Not seeing the parallel with Moyes. He failed mainly because he was successful with a brand of football in the 2000s that was no longer part of the elite game in the 2010s. And he wasn't smart enough to adapt like proper great managers have done. In contrast Potter is right in tune with modern tactics and is innovating himself with the extreme flexibility he's shown at Brighton.

The experience argument is a red herring too. 8 of the 12 Champions Leagues from 2009 to 2020 were won by managers who had "won feck all" in their managerial careers before taking up the top job.

Completely agree. The only comparison is that they performed well on a limited budget but even then the size of Everton compared to Brighton/Ostersunds/Swansea is incomparable really. Plus the tactical side of the game that you mention. Said it before but the type of football and the way Potter sees football is the present and future of the game. The way Moyes looks at it is sadly in the past which is why it may work for a little bit but will eventually end up being found out.
 
Meh, guy has a very average league record throughout his career. Good cup manager but if you wanna do well in the league, Tuchel aint the guy.

strange take. Think one could make a solid case for every club he coached regressing after he left. Must be the or right along the manager with the most ppg for each club too (except Chelsea). Unfortunate guy though, Dortmund bus-bombing and Chelsea‘s existential club crisis second half last season both tore his tenures apart.
 
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:lol:
 
He comes across as a nice guy, but does not have the mentality to be managing a top four club. Just like Moyes, it was simply an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.
 
Mind, Potter is one of the very few coaches truly implementing a system from scratch, and that takes time irrespective of the quality of the players (McFred or Casemiro-Eriksen… no difference to him). Add to that, the new owner is coming from a different sport/culture environment and still clueless about top level football.
 
He comes across as a nice guy, but does not have the mentality to be managing a top four club. Just like Moyes, it was simply an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.
The mentality part is the precious part that he lacks or doesn’t have enough of. From what I’ve listened an read to his interviews, he needs to improve his mentality from a small pond to a bigger pond. Sometimes being a nice guy is correct behavior and pretty respectable but on the other side, you couldn’t accept the mediocrity that often happens by results or performances on the pitch.

He needs time to adapt to the environment at Chelsea, but during this time he needs to change some of his mindset to be survived at Chelsea. I will see his improvements both on and off the pitch.
 
What are you guys on about? A mid-season manager change rarely works for top clubs. They were doing bad and they are still in a bad place.

Anyway, during regular season there's little to no time for tactical training, the days between matches are so few that most EPL clubs will be doing conditioning and some match training so the players can drill the attacking and defending patterns that are already instilled.

Pretty sure Potter is trying to instill new patterns, but during regular season it takes much more time to have an effect on the team and sometimes it can even cause entropy. Difficult to judge his work, but in the end of the day managers live under the team results and he will get the boot sooner or later.
 
Who has Boehly installed into the positions that were vacated by Petr Cech etc?

More football men, or his own men?

If the latter, Potter has an impossible job
 
strange take. Think one could make a solid case for every club he coached regressing after he left. Must be the or right along the manager with the most ppg for each club too (except Chelsea). Unfortunate guy though, Dortmund bus-bombing and Chelsea‘s existential club crisis second half last season both tore his tenures apart.

PSG regressed under him and were getting worse, he managed half a season worse than Poch’s half in their 2nd placed finish and got fired.
PSG finished that season with 82 points, then Poch got a full season and improved on it, winning the league with 86 points. This season they are currently on course for 98 points!!
Chelsea managed just 74 points with him, a total even Ole has matched and were also massively regressing under his tenureship when he got fired.

As for Dortmund, his final season (2017) was a 3rd place finish with 64 points, he then got fired & left them serious regressing, and within two seasons (2019) they finished 2nd with 76 points, followed by another 2nd with 69 points.

So where’s this “regression” you speak of @weetee ? Course it certainly aint in any sides league performances. If anything it’s the opposite, the longer he stays at a club, the worse their league performances get and he leaves them on a serious downward curve; at that point he gets fired. This has been true for Dortmund, PSG & Chelsea.

He’s just not a good league manager, hasn’t been anywhere.
 
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Chelsea shot themselves in the leg. I see it as total madness to sack a winning manager,Thomas Tuchel.

Unfortunately, they appointed a more or less an unproven manager at the top level. I see this as a clear example with what we experienced under David Moyes.

I hope Potter turns things around but not at the expense of Man Utd.
Personally I think the writing was on the wall for Tuchel. I know I'm in the minority there but there was good period where he couldn't get their attack functioning last season as well, and he didn't really do anything to remedy it in the transfer window despite spending over £300m (and having his fall out with Lukaku).

I don't think the Moyes comparisons are a true reflection with Potter - Moyes was a run of the mill Premier League manager completely out of his depth. He inherited a good team (the champions) and ran it into the ground. Potter's inherited a team without any great attacking options mid-season and struggled to get a tune out of them, after Tuchel himself already had a bad start. If he's given the freedom to bring his own forwards in and is still getting similar results, that's when you have to call his quality as a manager into question.
 
Personally I think the writing was on the wall for Tuchel. I know I'm in the minority there but there was good period where he couldn't get their attack functioning last season as well, and he didn't really do anything to remedy it in the transfer window despite spending over £300m (and having his fall out with Lukaku).

I don't think the Moyes comparisons are a true reflection with Potter - Moyes was a run of the mill Premier League manager completely out of his depth. He inherited a good team (the champions) and ran it into the ground. Potter's inherited a team without any great attacking options mid-season and struggled to get a tune out of them, after Tuchel himself already had a bad start. If he's given the freedom to bring his own forwards in and is still getting similar results, that's when you have to call his quality as a manager into question.
His Brighton teams had similar attacking problems as this Chelsea side?
 
PSG regressed under him and were getting worse, he managed half a season worse than Poch’s half in their 2nd placed finish and got fired.
PSG finished that season with 82 points, then Poch got a full season and improved on it, winning the league with 86 points. This season they are currently on course for 98 points!!
Chelsea managed just 74 points with him, a total even Ole has matched and were also massively regressing under his tenureship when he got fired.

As for Dortmund, his final season (2017) was a 3rd place finish with 64 points, he then got fired & left them serious regressing, and within two seasons (2019) they finished 2nd with 76 points, followed by another 2nd with 69 points.

So where’s this “regression” you speak of @weetee ? Course it certainly aint in any sides league performances. If anything it’s the opposite, the longer he stays at a club, the worse their league performances get and he leaves them on a serious downward curve; at that point he gets fired. This has been true for Dortmund, PSG & Chelsea.

He’s just not a good league manager, hasn’t been anywhere.

Ridiculus take but ok. You know who got fired too? Poch quite shortly after because of his boring style. Tuchel had them playing excellent football first and second season. Squad was incredibly unbalanced though, good for Galtier they also fired Leonardo and his predecessor and finally started to build a team - I like him.

Tuchel's first BVB campaign was brilliant and the last time that club played exciting football. Second season was a complete overhaul of the squad losing three key players all at once + that bombing mid-season so finishing third is nothing incredibly underwhelming all things considered. Which manager was better afterwards? Favre comes closest but his style is seriously underwhelming for a top club.

Mainz had brilliant league campaigns under him. Best manager they ever had. Not sure what you'd expect for a club that size.

Chelsea? They were in complete existential crisis almost half a season but yea, he didn't lay a glove on Pool and City. The horror. If you think Potter has them playing better that's on you.
 
Ah, so he leaves them all worse through no fault of his own.
Weird that you list all his best achievements coming early in all his spells, but when it all starts turning shit and he gets fired… someone else’s fault innit?

Appears to me that everywhere he has gone, he starts well, usually with someone else’s squad, and the longer he stays, the more daily influence he has on the squad and club, the worse he gets.

74 points isn’t “not laying a finger on City & Liverpool”, it’s equalling a points tally of Ole fecking Solksjaer.

Also weird you show zero proof of this “regression” except for Potter, who’s been in the job 5 minutes and took over a team Tuchel left in freefall.
 
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His Brighton teams had similar attacking problems as this Chelsea side?
They had problems scoring goals at times but the volume of chances his Brighton team created was far higher. This Chelsea team is even incapable of doing that when James, and to a lesser extent, Chilwell aren't fit.
 
Chelsea fans gona miss that Abramovich guy.
He would already had new manager to steady the ship and probably win some silverware.
 
Ah, so he leaves them all worse through no fault of his own.
Weird that you list all his best achievements coming early in all his spells, but when it all starts turning shit and he gets fired… someone else’s fault innit?

Appears to me that everywhere he has gone, he starts well, usually with someone else’s squad, and the longer he stays, the more daily influence he has on the squad and club, the worse he gets.

74 points isn’t “not laying a finger on City & Liverpool”, it’s equalling a points tally of Ole fecking Solksjaer.

Also weird you show zero proof of this “regression” except for Potter, who’s been in the job 5 minutes and took over a team Tuchel left in freefall.

Ask any Dortmund fan when was the last time they played brilliant football in the league.

What is so hard to understand that a bombing attack and a club in lockdown mode can cause a serious ruckus and disrupt your league campaign that where on the right track up to those incidents. That's literally 2/4 clubs he's been at while you conveniently leave out Mainz as he had great campaigns for multiple seasons. You may not like him and that's totally fine but to call his league campaigns average appears very biased or at least superficial. But I don't think this discussion leads somewhere.
 
I struggle to identify what Potter's plan is when I watch Chelsea. I don't think they've made much headway so far. A lot of chopping and changing initially and I don't see much within the style of play. I think he's still searching for things.

But I think the point is if you appoint a young manager with limited experience at the top end of football it then makes no sense to not combine this with a willingness to let him develop. It remains to be seen whether they take that approach post-Roman, but it would make sense. If you want immediate results you should probably appoint experience and track record to begin with. It was kind of implicit within the hiring of Potter that you're going to give him windows, plenty of money etc to implement his ideas and adapt to a major club. Not too dissimilar to the Arteta situation.
 
The problem is not Potter. And was not Tuchel. The problem is a disastrous transfer market. Boehly wasted 200m and the team is worst than last year.
 
You may not like him and that's totally fine but to call his league campaigns average appears very biased or at least superficial. But I don't think this discussion leads somewhere.

I like Tuchel alot, he’s a character.

But his league campaigns over his career are average. If you don’t like me leaving out Mainz I’ll stick em in too.

9th, 5th, 13th, 13th, 7th. There’s only one season there worth writing home about. Yes it was good for Mainz, but similar things can be said about the likes of David Moyes. They finished 6th again two seasons after he left.

There isn’t a league campaign in his entire top flight career that stands out as truly special, and as mentioned, he left all of Dortmund, PSG and Chelsea on a downward curve. None of his league finishes at any of the clubs were special, all were matched or thereabouts within two seasons of him leaving. I suspect Chelsea will also match or beat his 74 points tally next season also.

His league campaigns:

Mainz 1: Decent
Mainz 2: Very good
Mainz 3: meh
Mainz 4: meh
Mainz 5: good

Dortmund 1: Very good
Dortmund 2: meh

PSG 1: Good
PSG 2: Good
PSG 3: Crap & sacked

Chelsea 1: meh
Chelsea 2: crap & sacked

That isn’t a great league manager there, he’s a good cup tactician, but if you wanna do well in the league, he aint your man.
 
I like Tuchel alot, he’s a character.

But his league campaigns over his career are average. If you don’t like me leaving out Mainz I’ll stick em in too.

9th, 5th, 13th, 13th, 7th. There’s only one season there worth writing home about. Yes it was good for Mainz, but similar things can be said about the likes of David Moyes. They finished 6th again two seasons after he left.

There isn’t a league campaign in his entire top flight career that stands out as truly special, and as mentioned, he left all of Dortmund, PSG and Chelsea on a downward curve. None of his league finishes at any of the clubs were special, all were matched or thereabouts within two seasons of him leaving. I suspect Chelsea will also match or beat his 74 points tally next season also.

His league campaigns:

Mainz 1: Decent
Mainz 2: Very good
Mainz 3: meh
Mainz 4: meh
Mainz 5: good

Dortmund 1: Very good
Dortmund 2: meh

PSG 1: Good
PSG 2: Good
PSG 3: Crap & sacked

Chelsea 1: meh
Chelsea 2: crap & sacked

That isn’t a great league manager there, he’s a good cup tactician, but if you wanna do well in the league, he aint your man.

It's wildly off topic, my fault, but Mainz at the time wasn't a Buli mainstay but just entered first division, he kept them in the league and had even some spectacular spells with them. That's not average and I don't remember any coach afterwards coming nearly as good, be it regarding peak performances nor in the long run.

Dortmund, second season was a disaster. They sold three key players after his excellent run the season before and on top of that got their bus bombed with all kind of fallouts afterwards. That wasn't down on him.

PSG, mixed results but I remember them breaking all kind of league records. Squad was very imbalanced, sporting directors where both crap, everything was centered around Verratti, Neymar and Mbappe and they were all injured quite often. Their fullbacks where a complete disaster back then - can't compare that to what Galtier can chose from nowadays.

Chelsea: he took over when they were 9th and in free fall. That's not a "meh" season securing CL after that. No pre-season either (because that's the excuse at times for others not delivering). Second season was great up to the point their key players got injured (was #1 for quite a while), the congested shedule took it's toll and finally nobody knew wheter the club as we know it would survive at all. Securing the CL spot is not crap in my book especially since the squad wasn't great back then either.

You must have pretty high standards for managers.


Anyway, regarding Potter it's a very risky play. He certainly seems like a manager that needs to build his team, which takes time, but also hasn't proven to be able to coach an elite side with all the additional noise and pressure and to center your re-build around someone like that could go awfully wrong. I guess they keep him if nothing crazy happens and it is interesting to follow but also very risky especially in a competitive league like the PL.
 
You must have pretty high standards for managers.

On the contrary, you have low standards where the likes of Laurent Blanc & Ole Solksjaer easily match his league achievements in France and England. Even what he did with Mainz isn’t vastly different to what many new Premier League teams have managed, or Ralf Ragnick in Germany for that matter.
 
On the contrary, you have low standards where the likes of Laurent Blanc & Ole Solksjaer easily match his league achievements in France and England. Even what he did with Mainz isn’t vastly different to what many new Premier League teams have managed, or Ralf Rangnick in Germany for that matter.
I’m not sure Ole compares actually. Your 2nd place finish was worse than our 3rd place finish, United would have been below Chelsea on GD if it was the same season and he lost a Europa league final as favourites compared to winning the CL as underdog. That season we also created a ridiculous amount of chances and would have scored more if it was not for our finishing while Mendy was the best keeper in Europe with a 90% save. But anyway sure.

Anyway in the end he deserved to be fired for an entire year of mediocrity. Which has continued from a squad he patched up. I’m prepared to give Potter next season to see if there’s a difference. We are playing shit but it’s not the end of the World. If we could actually sign someone who can score and get our injury list down we will be ok.
 
I’m not sure Ole compares actually. Your 2nd place finish was worse than our 3rd place finish, United would have been below Chelsea on GD if it was the same season and he lost a Europa league final as favourites compared to winning the CL as underdog. That season we also created a ridiculous amount of chances and would have scored more if it was not for our finishing while Mendy was the best keeper in Europe with a 90% save. But anyway sure.

Anyway in the end he deserved to be fired for an entire year of mediocrity. Which has continued from a squad he patched up. I’m prepared to give Potter next season to see if there’s a difference. We are playing shit but it’s not the end of the World. If we could actually sign someone who can score and get our injury list down we will be ok.
There’s no way you can extrapolate half a season worth of results from a manager who has never not had a long, long , shit period of league form as Chelsea manager.
Remember all this give him a full season nonsense you used to tell us? How did after Christmas last year pan out?
Ole got a third and a second in the EPL, how about Tuchel?
 
On the contrary, you have low standards where the likes of Laurent Blanc & Ole Solksjaer easily match his league achievements in France and England. Even what he did with Mainz isn’t vastly different to what many new Premier League teams have managed, or Ralf Rangnick in Germany for that matter.

We're on the complete opposite side o the spectrum it seems, but Ragnick, seriously? Tuchel got 80p in his first 38 PL league matches. That's by no means average. And to think he became appointed Klopp successor at Dortmund becaues of his average coaching at Mainz is stretching it. Same for getting appointed at PSG after his average league results with Dortmund. But whatever mate, this isn't leading anywhere. Cheers.
 
Tuchel got 80p in his first 38 PL league matches. That's by no means average.

Ha ha, oh we mixing seasons now to try getting a season look alright? Ole also had a great honeymoon remember, picking up 36 points in his first 14 games, it means nothing. What matters is how it pans out over a full season with a full pre season under a manager’s belt.

He got 74 points in his full season, it’s average. 80 aint great either, Mourinho twatted that as United manager and he was a meh United manager, the best of a shit bunch post SAF. The only one to do “alright”.

Chelsea want to win & compete for leagues, not be happy to get 80 points. Tuchel aint gonna be the man for that, and you’ve yet to show any evidence other than a 2 seasons in his entire career for Mainz and Dortmund where he did very very well. There’s no exceptional league season on his entire CV.
 
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Ha ha, oh we mixing seasons now to try getting a season look alright? Ole also had a great honeymoon remember, picking up 36 points in his first 14 games, it means nothing. What matters is how it pans out over a full season with a full pre season under a manager’s belt.

He got 74 points in his full season, it’s average. 80 aint great either, Mourinho twatted that as United manager and he was a meh United manager, the best of a shit bunch post SAF. The only one to do “alright”.

Chelsea want to win & compete for leagues, not be happy to get 80 points. Tuchel aint gonna be the man for that, and you’ve yet to show any evidence other than a 2 seasons in his entire career for Mainz and Dortmund where he did very very well. There’s no exceptional league season on his entire CV.

Dude, last season was a wee bit special for Chelsea in case you missed it. If you think 38 consecutive league games are a weird metric to check how a manager is doing in the league I can't help you. And if you think Chelsea had a squad to compete for a title that's you pov but I guess most would disagree. But whatever let's agree to disagree.

edit: Also, it's just you saying he had two very good seasons. Occam's razor says he wouldn't be appointed those top jobs if he'd be an average "league" manager.
 
Dude, last season was a wee bit special for Chelsea in case you missed it. If you think 38 consecutive league games are a weird metric to check how a manager is doing in the league I can't help you. And if you think Chelsea had a squad to compete for a title that's you pov but I guess most would disagree. But whatever let's agree to disagree.

Of course it’s a weird metric, not least for the massive months long gap in the middle where teams change players & managers.

Here’s a stat for you though, in his final 38 games he took 71 points. Just as with Dortmund & PsG, the longer he stayed on, the worse the league form became.

What are we disagreeing on? Do you seriously still think Tuchel has proven himself a top league manager? Come on man, you’ve still yet to show me where he overachieved in a league season?
I’ve shown you evidence at all his clubs of him leaving them in a worse position and of his successors doing as well as him or thereabouts within a season or two, even at Mainz.
 
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edit: Also, it's just you saying he had two very good seasons. Occam's razor says he wouldn't be appointed those top jobs if he'd be an average "league" manager.

Well that’s just pure drivel :lol:

Just look at the man who preceded him at PSG, or the man who preceded him or followed him at Chelsea, or the man who was in charge of United post Fergie and pre ETH.
Are Moyes, Emery, Ole, Lampard, Potter top league managers?

What does Occam’s razor tell you there? That only top league managers get offered top jobs?

Unlike the names mentioned I suspect Tuchel will get another good job though, as Emery did at Arsenal, because, similar to Emery, he’s proven himself a good cup manager, and he’s likeable.
 
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Well that’s just pure drivel :lol:

Just look at the man who preceded him at PSG, or the man who preceded him or followed him at Chelsea, or the man who was in charge of United post Fergie and pre ETH.
Are Moyes, Emery, Ole, Lampard, Potter top league managers?

What does Occam’s razor tell you there? That only top league managers get offered top jobs?

Unlike the names mentioned I suspect Tuchel will get another good job though, as Emery did at Arsenal, because, similar to Emery, he’s proven himself a good cup manager, and he’s likeable.

How many top teams did Moyes got appointed to? Ole? Lampard? Tuchel 3x. And I'd argue that Ole and Lampard wouldn't have been appointed to a single one if it weren't for their careers as players.
 
The problem is not Potter. And was not Tuchel. The problem is a disastrous transfer market. Boehly wasted 200m and the team is worst than last year.
Agree. They've been poor in the transfer market since Boehly took over.
 
Emery’s managed comparable teams, why leave him out? Doesn’t fit your razor?

Quite snappy, aren't we? I forgot him. Although I don't rate Villareal nor Aston Villa as elite clubs. But yeah, he's a good coach, doubt he is one for the primadonna top clubs and I would think he realized it as well but ok. Not really sure what your point was regarding him. I don't rate only the title winning managers as good league managers but some do eventually.
 
Quite snappy, aren't we? I forgot him. Although I don't rate Villareal nor Aston Villa as elite clubs. But yeah, he's a good coach, doubt he is one for the primadonna top clubs and I would think he realized it as well but ok. Not really sure what your point was regarding him. I don't rate only the title winning managers as good league managers but some do eventually.

Erm, he’s got an average league record throughout his career, much like Tuchel.

Yet he’s managed:

• Valencia (Dortmund comparable, reached 2 CL finals and won La Liga a few years before he joined).

• PSG

• Arsenal (Chelsea comparable)

So yes, even managers that don’t have great league records can get multiple opportunities at top clubs.
 
Same points and look who you’re comparing him to! :lol: Ole was a terrible manager and he managed to better him on goal difference only.
That's like when people tried to claim Bruce was as good for Newcastle as Benitez because they got the "same results"
 
So yes, even managers that don’t have great league records can get multiple opportunities at top clubs.

I'm done with this convo, leads to nothing. Just a reminder though: I never claimed Tuchel has great league records (albeit I'd say he had minimum two amazing ones, once with Mainz and once with Dortmund) but I find the notion him being a mediocre coach within a league system laughable. But that's just my opinion and you clearly have a different one. Fine with me.