IAN LADYMAN: Graham Potter needs time to work magic at Chelsea similar to Mikel Arteta at Arsenal

In an interview in these pages on the opening weekend of the Premier League season, Graham Potter, then Brighton manager, had something to say about progress and the prospect of moving to a bigger club.

“There will always be little failures along the way and you just have to make sure they’re not too many or too big or you’ll lose your job,” Potter said. ‘You can still challenge yourself, but at the same time develop, grow and stay alive at work.

‘Of course, staying alive is part of the consideration when you take a job. You ask yourself: “What are the chances of being myself here? Of continuing to work? Do they understand how I got to this point?”

Graham Potter has gotten off to a slow start to his life at Chelsea, having taken over in September.

‘Because there’s no point in going somewhere and them expecting something completely different from what you’ve always been.’

With Potter’s Chelsea ninth in the table and riding a run of just one win in seven league games after Sunday’s disheartening draw at Nottingham Forest, these words seem relevant now.

When Potter left Brighton for Chelsea in September, the version of the 47-year-old they said they wanted was the one who rebuilt clubs and teams from within, the one who had most recently slowly remodeled and improved Brighton over three seasons.

In their first meeting, new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly told Potter that he wanted a transformational manager, someone who could usher in a new culture, style of play and recruiting model from the top of the club to the level of the academy. The problem is, at a club like Chelsea, you also have to be the kind of manager who can do this and win football games at the same time.

After a disappointing draw with Nottingham Forest, Chelsea currently sit ninth in the league.

This is new to Potter and right now represents his biggest challenge. In his first season at Brighton, his team won nine games, the same as the previous season under Chris Hughton. In their second, they again won nine. So, in tangible terms, it was a slow burn.

For all that was recognizably different about Brighton football, the truth is that the real benefits of Potter’s work were not felt until his third season, and indeed the start of this one.

At Chelsea it feels like overkill to be given that much time, no matter what Boehly has told his manager. Likewise, the equipment that he has at his disposal is not equipped to play what we may call Potter-ball. Years of classic, messy Chelsea recruiting have left a mess behind.

Thomas Tuchel warned of what awaited the club after losing the FA Cup final against Liverpool on penalties last May.

It feels like a stretch that Potter will have time at Chelsea no matter what Boehly says.

Standing in a hallway at Wembley, the German said his team lacked depth and balance and impending summer departures would only make matters worse. It’s hard to say now that he was wrong and that he was fired before we got to the fall.

As Potter cleared his desk on his way to replace Tuchel on that dramatic September day, someone who knows him well took stock of the team he was about to inherit and said: “Graham wouldn’t pick more than a small handful of those players.”

It seemed like a fair analysis. Potter’s Brighton smashed Manchester United on opening day at Old Trafford with a team of bright, hungry and intelligent players looking to prove themselves. That day in Manchester last August, Brighton was the brave and brilliant coach incarnation of him.

At Chelsea it is different. Potter has some really good footballers at Stamford Bridge. But he also has a central defensive pairing that no other Premier League manager would choose and a forward line that, with the exception of Raheem Sterling, has already proven unable to play consistently well under two previous managers.

Thomas Tuchel warned of what awaited the club after losing the FA Cup final in May

More than that, Potter doesn’t have the malleable group of young, open-minded players it needs. For Chelsea to fully and properly restart under Potter, the club requires the kind of player review that requires multiple transfer windows to achieve.

This has been Potter’s style for a long time, but now he’s working in a different world. Chelsea and Brighton are so fundamentally different from each other that they might as well be playing in different leagues.

Some have already questioned whether Potter is fit to work at a really big club and that’s a good point. Some managers just aren’t. Time will tell that. Similarly, there is a lesson to be learned from the club currently at the top of the Premier League table.

Mikel Arteta was given time despite two poor seasons, but Arsenal currently sit at the top of the league.

In Mikel Arteta’s first half-season at Arsenal – he was appointed at Christmas 2019 – his team finished 43 points behind champion Liverpool. In the Spanish stage at the club, Arsenal has been eighth, eighth, fifth and, for now, first. The team facing Newcastle tonight is likely to feature two of the 11 that started Arteta’s first game just over three years ago.

The radical changes brought about by Arteta have been exactly what Potter is now looking for in all of London. Personnel, tactics, culture. But the key is that the Spaniard was allowed to lose like he did. Arsenal allowed Arteta to have one of those periods of mini-failure that Potter talked about in that interview at the start of the season.

It’s hard to do, it’s painful and it’s not in Chelsea’s nature. But this is the choice Boehly faces now. If the American isn’t prepared to finish sixth, seventh, eighth or worse while his new coach goes through the first phase of his work this season, he might as well fire him now.