Chelsea fans can now rest easy following the sacking of Graham Potter, whose dismissal they have clamoured for a while.
The Englishman came in for Thomas Tuchel as part of the shake ups made by the Todd Boehly administration but he did not last a full season despite all the promise his appointment held.
Potter’s appointment, however, was not without merit.
He was playing some of the best football in England while at Brighton and Hove Albion, who were providing him with the perfect profiles of players through their impeccable scouting. He was already being touted for many of the top jobs before the Boehly-led consortium took over Chelsea and won him over.
The American and his partner axed Tuchel who, to be fair, was not doing well at the time of his sacking as they sought to erase everything that still tied the club to the Roman Abramovich era. In hindsight, that sacking could be seen as immature from the American, calling to question their knowledge of football/soccer.
Potter also started his new tenure on a high note but dropped when the transfers started happening. This brings us to the second point of this piece: the erratic transfer activity at Chelsea.
No club in the world spent more than the Stamford Bridge outfit on players in the past seven months. In the summer, they signed eight players for a sum total worth more than £250 million. In the winter, they brought in nine players for more than £300 million. Both fees (separately and total) were record fees.
The 17 new signings for the club were only outdone by those of Nottingham Forest who still managed to keep their spending under £150 million in total.
Chelsea are also said to be monitoring around five players for the 2023/24 summer transfer window to take the number of signings by Todd Boehly’s administration to 22 in a little over a year since he and his partners took over the club.
This formless transfer strategy is problematic for any club or manager, let alone Potter, who was only making the jump to the first big role of his managerial career. Managers will have to deal with the club’s spendthrift nature and their propensity to go after shiny things.
Things will eventually start working out for the Blues under the new ownership. Most of the marquee players will eventually gel and their quality will propel the club back to the heights they were used to.
The route back to relevancy will be long and hard, however, as Boehly will continue signing and tinkering until he finally jas a hang of how a football/soccer club is run.
