When play was stopped for VAR to review a suspected handball by Kai Havertz in the penalty area, cameras were pointed at Graham Potter in the dugout, and a replay of the action was also shown. When it dawned on him that it was a penalty kick, his emotional agility kicked into overdrive with resigned speech. “Heck me” said the Chelsea bossand not in a good way.
And indeed, we had sex.
Havertz’s ridiculous handball reminded me of a similar handball by Salomon Kalou late on A 1-1 draw with Valencia in early 2011-12. Many have compared Potter to the equally stuttering Chelsea manager of the time, Andre Villas-Boas. AVB’s worst run of results would be 2 wins in 9 in all competitions (with 5 draws and 2 defeats) before he was sacked. Potter now also has 2 wins in 9 in all competitions, although he has a record of 6 defeats.
Chelsea’s side with Mount, Havertz, Ziech, Jorginho, Kovacic, Koulibaly, Gallagher, Chalupa and Kepa should play passionate, competitive and tactically organized football. This is the minimum explanation, does not happen. I don’t want to hear about injuries.
– Paul Wentworth (@paultwentworth) January 8, 2023
Things are clearly “different” now, eg It reminded us of Potter this weekend, which makes comparisons difficult. Of course, Potter’s own comparisons when subtracting the time and patience spent on Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp in their first seasons are similarly unapplicable. Different teams, different positions, different managers, different resumes, different expectations.
Most importantly, their success also unfortunately does not guarantee our success, it only provides a best-in-class result that we can strive for, perhaps foolishly. Premier League football is full of examples of this folly.
“We were second to a very good team. We’re obviously not in a great moment ourselves [but] The first half was painful and difficult for all of us. In the second half we had to respond and I thought there were some positives with the young players [who] Gave everything and it showed its quality. But in the end we are disappointed that we are out of the competition.
“[You] You can make excuses and look for reasons or you can say it’s not good enough. Both answers are correct so we have to keep improving and sticking together because obviously we are struggling as a football club and that’s not nice at all. This is where we are now. [We] We can’t do anything other than do our jobs better and work harder.
We understand the frustration of the supporters, and that is understandable and we will respect it. Our job is to do our jobs, keep working, see the situation for what it is and of course there are always other opinions, negativity and criticism because the results weren’t positive. This is part of the work and the challenge.
“[…] Everyone wants to try to do better. I think there is support in the dressing room, we just have a bad moment and sometimes when you have these moments you need someone to blame, something to blame, I understand where that question comes from. But at the same time, we have to stick together and keep working.”
– Graham Potter. Source: Football London
It’s a complex situation to be sure, and context matters. But the responsibility has to stop somewhere, and right now, no one is held accountable, certainly not those you would expect to be held accountable as part of their job definition. Our results weren’t great but our football was even worse! We have accepted that this is our lot in life. We are only the second best team after all, and we must suffer, and what can we do at all to get out of it?
(And I don’t mean to blindly hope Potter’s next up-and-comer for the yet-to-be-proven Mikel Arteta, let alone the outliers in Guardiola and Klopp, who just replaced Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger as the black swan of Premier League football management.)
How long can you trust a process if the process is not trustworthy?