In England, more and more details are coming out about Graham Potter’s working methods and his relationship with the Chelsea players. On Sunday evening, the 47-year-old coach passed the Blues put on the street. According to English media, this is partly because Potter failed to command respect from a large part of the selection. For example, the big names would have seriously questioned Hakim Ziyech’s basic place two months ago.
Potter went behind his back Harry and Hogwarts named. Hogwarts is the English name of Hogwarts, a castle and school of magic from the famous seven-part book series Harry Potter. Media in England claim that Graham Potter did not come close to the respect that his predecessor Thomas Tuchel managed to command. The curtain fell for the former last weekend, after he went down 0-2 at home against Aston Villa on Saturday.
Potter managed to win just 12 of his 31 games as Chelsea manager. Eleven times he went down with his team. The Englishman was fully supported in his first transfer window in January, as he saw the club spend more than €300 million with the arrival of Enzo Fernández, Mykhailo Mudryk and Noni Madueke, among others. However, the investments did not lead to the desired results, after which skepticism arose about whether Potter had anything to say about the purchasing policy.
The belief in the dressing room was that Potter only nodded ‘yes’ to the wealthy American owner Todd Boehly. At one point Chelsea had more than thirty selection players, which meant that some players had to change in the hallway due to a lack of space in the dressing room. Potter’s actions before and after games also caused a lot of bewilderment among the selection. For example, on February 3 in the home game against Fulham, he decided to appeal to Ziyech from the start, who saw a rental deal with Paris Saint-Germain collapse just before.
The former Ajax player was furious because of the failed deal, but surprisingly enough was put in the starting line-up against Fulham by Potter. Three weeks earlier, João Felix was also assigned a starting place against Fulham. The Portuguese, who was sent off on his debut, had only been with the group for 24 hours after his switch from Atlético Madrid. Potter is also accused of being difficult to speak during press conferences. Players got the impression that he was constantly floundering in front of the media and had difficulty expressing himself.