Chelsea fans should try being as level-headed as Graham Potter
The Chelsea job really is one tough gig and I, for one, am confident it will all come good, at least until it doesn’t.
The managerial job at Chelsea Football Club is one tough gig. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Graham Potter is the latest incumbent of a seat that takes as much as it gives. The trappings that have fallen into the former Brighton manager’s lap in the form of money, an elongated contract and new players are counterbalanced by a life and style that is scrutinised to the nth degree.
Following the recent draw with West Ham, Potter was vilified for not channeling his inner Jose Mourinho when Chelsea weren’t awarded a penalty for a dubious handball.
It seems nice guys can’t be football managers.
The furore from media and fans alike is that Potter himself or the role he occupies needs some kind of personality transplant. Potter addressed those concerns in his pre-match press conference ahead of the Dortmund game.
Of course I get angry, I’m a human being, it’s just that I choose to conduct myself in the way I believe I should. The same media are talking about me being more angry and then running stories about referees at grassroots level. It’s an emotional thing but I have a responsibility to Chelsea, the game and myself to act in a certain way for me.
If you think you can start a coaching career in the ninth tier of English football and get to this point now, with Chelsea and the Champions League, without being angry or getting nice, I would suggest you don’t know anything about anything.
As for Mourinho, the media developed a love/hate relationship with the Portuguese One. On the one hand, he birthed column inches with his crass disrespect for those who controlled the beautiful game. On the other, he could turn on those questioning him in a heartbeat. When his back was against the wall, he was at his best. Like Roman Abramovich, Mourinho’s impact was instantaneous, as was the connection with supporters. As a pundit, he said this on Sky Sports in 2019, when Frank Lampard was in charge and following a 2-1 defeat to Liverpool.
When you start accepting defeats just because your team played well or the players gave their best and gave a performance for people to be proud of in terms of attitude and commitment - I think when you get used to it is when big clubs stop being big clubs.
Those are the kind of comments that Potter has been guilty of during Chelsea’s recent run of poor form, and the pressure on his shoulders is building with every interview he does.
The process that Potter is trying to undertake, however, is a more organic one than we’ve ever seen at Stamford Bridge. Todd Boehly and his Clearlake cohorts are clearly still trusting the process they instigated when they ushered Thomas Tuchel away.
How many times during the great Abramovich era did we, as fans and supporters, cry out for managerial stability? We cried “Play the yoof!” “Quit with the hiring and firing!” “Let’s build for the future!”
That was never going to happen under the Russian’s stewardship, but there were many times when we called for it.
Defeats against Dortmund and lowly Southampton have followed the West Ham game and, with them, the ugly side of social media has grimaced. Speaking ahead of the game against Tottenham, Potter spoke about threats he and his family received.
I've had some not particularly nice emails come through, that want me to die. That's obviously not pleasant to receive. You could ask my family how life has been for me and for them. It's been not pleasant at all, you can answer it two ways. I could say I don't care, but you know I'm lying. Everyone cares what people think, because we're hardwired to be socially connected.
With the results as they are, you accept criticism. That's not to say it's easy at all. Your family life suffers, your mental health suffers, your personality. Life is tough for lots of people. You ask me if it is hard, I say yes it is hard. You suffer. You get upset. When you're in private, you show real emotion with your family.
But the world is tough. We're going through an energy crisis, a cost of living crisis. People are striking every other week. No one wants to hear about the poor old Premier League manager.
That makes for unpleasant reading and the Chelsea Supporters Trust have rightly strongly condemned the actions of a few imbeciles. However, the wonderful world of Twitter - again - allows some, who should perhaps know better, a platform to passive aggressively gang up on Potter as he tries to gel together a heap of new players, juggle a mountain of injuries and, perhaps hardest of all, fight Lady Luck.
In short, the “where were you when we were shit brigade” don’t appear to like it when we’re actually shit.
Those of us who have an ingrained patience that was nurtured through years of SW6 shit understand that supporting a football club has nothing to do with results. Back the team, back the manager and, dare I say it, Trust. The. Process.
The keyboard warriors who think the World Wide Web has given them a platform that allows the right to scream abuse and increase their profile are wrong. No one cares about their opinion. We have no control over Graham Potter’s destiny. The best we can do is back him until he’s no longer with our team.
Those that sit in the stadium must play their part, too. Just to be clear, I’m not at the Bridge very often, but anecdotally there has been booing of Marc Cucurella and that, too, has to stop. Supporters have every right to collectively jeer the team for a poor performance, but not individuals. It happened on the odd occasion with Jorginho and it really shouldn’t.
Spoiler alert: none of the above will happen.
Ahead of the Tottenham game, it was good to see Potter arrive late for his usual pre-match press conference and, with a beaming smile, announce to the waiting journalists, “Sorry I’m late, I’ve just come out of a crisis meeting.”
Graham Potter will never gambol down the touchline like Jose Mourinho or crowd surf like Antonio Conte, but that does not make him a bad manager. Given time, we must collectively hope it all comes good.
The Chelsea job really is one tough gig and I, for one, am confident it will all come good, at least until it doesn’t.
Photo credit: Ungry Young Man / Flickr, under CC BY 2.0.
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