Tactics and Transfers: Horrid and Irredeemable Chelsea

I’m sure they all like having the quality of wives and girlfriends who say “he plays for Chelsea”. I’m sure they have children who enjoy that feeling. Their parents feel the same I bet. The cars, jewelry, penthouse apartments, nightclub openings, cool international advertisements, and fashion show invitations are probably of great appeal too. They likely enjoy living in West London or Surrey and the fine leafy and luxurious lives that they live in accordance with the Chelsea way.

So they must think long and hard about whether or not they believe that they themselves are earning that standard of life at the moment.

That though is why Chelsea cannot fire Graham Potter in this instance.

They need to break this fever once and for all before building again in the preseason.

For too many years Chelsea have gone from coach to manager and then back again all the while leaving the players blameless. The players knew that no matter how poorly they played they’d really only need to shoulder a few cold glances from a struggling manager before they’d be off and they could see if the new one appreciated their loathesome and sycophantic behavior any more than the last one.

Has Graham Potter made mistakes? Sure. Of course, he has.

This weird desire to consistently switch out nearly his entire 11 so that no player can either gain match fitness or have the benefit of momentum stinks of a lack of confidence. At least he’s smart enough to lack confidence at the moment. It would be daft to be confident when coaching a side as meek and awful as Chelsea have been this past seemingly endless time.

But every manager makes mistakes and guess what so does every player.

The simple truth is that this is a bad moment. Going from Tuchel to Potter to Insert-Name-Here makes Chelsea look just as stupid as people want us to look. We must be stronger than that.