IAN LADYMAN: Graham Potter’s sacking by Chelsea is dismally short-term and short-sighted

So it turns out that the new Chelsea is just like the old Chelsea. Win or bust. Advance or go to the next.

The appointment of Graham Potter was supposed to mark the end of Roman Abramovich’s years of hiring and firing, both literally and in terms of the club’s philosophical outlook. It was, new owner Todd Boehly assured Potter when hiring him last September, the time to build a different and more sustainable football club.

But that meant nothing in the end. It meant nothing once a season of reverse travel became inevitable. It meant nothing once a shiny new toy from Germany became available. How inevitable. How sadly short-sighted and myopic.

Chelsea shouldn’t have to put up with bad managers, of course, but Potter is not one, even if he has been a disappointment in some respects. The results of it have been worse than anyone could have anticipated.

But Potter has never been an impact manager. That’s not on his CV. His first season at Brighton was a bit slow, even he would admit. But his resume tells you that, over time, he is a coach who can have a profound impact on a group of players and on a football club.

Todd Boehly’s appointment of Potter was supposed to end Roman Abramovich’s years of hire and redundancy at Stamford Bridge as it ensured the manager would have time

Potter was forced to work with a bloated team full of new players and totally unbalanced.

There was very little sign of those gifts in Chelsea. Some of his selections were unusual. Similarly, Potter has been asked to work with a bloated team full of new players and totally lacking in balance.

Chelsea, for example, don’t have a single reliable centre-forward simply because Abramovich spent the last few years of his ownership sanctioning the purchase of the really bad or really inadequate ones. And then Boehly came along and bought a rogue one too, in the shape of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Of all the strange things Chelsea have done in recent months, buying a center forward like Aubameyang in August and then bringing in a manager like Potter the following month was perhaps the strangest. Perhaps we should have known then that joint long-term planning was something Boehly was capable of saying only to find implementing it a bit more difficult.

With all this in mind, the statistics behind what turned out to be Potter’s last game in charge of Chelsea were quite apt. Possession was at 70 percent and that yielded 13 corners, 27 shots on goal and exactly no goals. The result was a 2-0 home loss to Aston Villa.

Some say that Potter was not cut out for a big club. That he said the wrong things at the wrong time and in the wrong way. It’s weird how they throw those things at managers when they lose but not when they win. It’s all rubbish, of course. What matters is what happens on the training ground and then on match day and the great shame now is that we will never know if the big change in direction, some real faith in a new way of being, would have worked at Chelsea. over time. .

Chelsea’s attempts to reach the top four of the Premier League ended weeks ago. They are still in the Champions League at the quarter-final stage and that is a competition in which Potter’s Chelsea have performed reasonably well.

So the interesting thing for Chelsea and Boehly would have been to give Potter his time for the rest of the season, through a summer and a pre-season and until next season. In other words, do what they said they would do. That would have been the bravest thing to do.

But ultimately, Boehly’s Chelsea have proven to be like the one before and that feels a bit sad, if also a bit inevitable. Potter will come again. He is a good coach and man. It would not be a surprise to see him at Leicester next season. That already feels like a good option for both of you.

Potter’s sacking proves he’s the same Chelsea as former owner Abramovich

Julian Nagelsmann is the favorite to take the job after he was recently sacked by Bayern Munich.

He will no doubt choose his next club carefully. In statements to this newspaper as Brighton coach at the start of the season, he allowed himself to speak hypothetically about what a change to another site would have to mean.

“Staying alive is part of the consideration when you take a job,” he said.

‘You ask: ‘What are the chances of being myself here? Do you understand how I got to this point?

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

With that in mind, Chelsea and Graham Potter always seemed like an odd partnership. He hasn’t changed and neither have they, it seems. He is the same Chelsea, just in different clothes.