LIKE many people, I feel sorry for Graham Potter.The Chelsea boss is a very likeable man, the sort you’d love as a brother-in-law or nextdoor neighbour.
Graham Potter is under growing pressure at ChelseaCredit: Getty
And a talented coach who has proved himself an enlightened over-achiever at lesser clubs.
But when the manager of an elite football club becomes a figure of widespread sympathy, it feels he isn’t cut out to be an elite football manager.
It was interesting that Potter chose to disclose last week that he had received death threats from supporters.
Such treatment is vile and criminal. It is a sad indictment on football’s rampant anger culture and anyone with an ounce of humanity feels for Potter.
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The Chelsea boss has a masters degree in emotional intelligence. If he wants to make those death threats public, he does so with a more informed background than most of us.
Shining a light on such despicable behaviour might do football some sort of service.
But brutal as it sounds, it didn’t help with the image problem Potter has among Chelsea fans.
Since arriving at Stamford Bridge, Potter has become the epitome of the old adage ‘show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser’.
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That quote from legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi is harsh but enduring because, in top-level sport, it is true.
The greatest managers hate losing – see Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger, who despite being intelligent and urbane, was the worst loser of the lot.
Did anyone ever feel sorry for Ferguson, Mourinho or Wenger?
Potter takes every defeat on the chin – never angry; always stoical.
But his Chelsea team is terrible. Truly pitiful. They aren’t winning or scoring.
A home defeat by bottom club Southampton was followed by a limp surrender in a supposed grudge match against Tottenham.
A club which finished third last season, and have since spent £550million, have two wins from 15 games and one goal in six outings.
There is every chance they will finish in the bottom half, as the third best team in west London, below Fulham and Brentford.
Is there really no limit to how low Chelsea can go this season before Potter is sacked?
The Blues have been in relegation form since the World Cup but are still ten points and eight places above the drop zone so there is no genuine danger of the drop.
If Chelsea fail to overturn a 1-0 deficit and exit the Champions League to Borussia Dortmund next week, perhaps that will be the trigger point.
It is a year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and therefore a year since the start of the decline of Chelsea, the plaything of Putin crony Roman Abramovich for the previous 19 years.
New owner Todd Boehly seems utterly determined to stick with Potter and prove he is nothing like hire-and-fire Abramovich.
And it’s unlikely that any of Boehly’s mates will launch a full-scale invasion of a sovereign nation anytime soon.
Showing patience can be a good thing. Mikel Arteta – whose Arsenal side sank lower than Potter’s Chelsea have yet done – was backed and may now win the title.
But surely for Potter to survive, there must be signs that the manager has a plan, that the players believe in him, that there is hope?
At Spurs on Sunday, there was none of that.
The Chelsea boss spun his Potter’s wheel again, making six changes. And it got even worse.
Hakim Ziyech, who would have joined Paris St Germain on January deadline day before the deal fell through, started the game, was lucky not to receive a red card and was generally shocking.
Mykhailo Mudryk, all £88.5m of him, was benched.
Benoit Badiashile, the one January signing who has settled in impressively, was dropped too.
Kai Havertz, who really isn’t a centre-forward, was centre-forward again.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got a late run-out after a month in the wilderness during which he was axed from Chelsea’s Champions League squad.
Reece James and Ben Chilwell, who thrive as attacking wing-backs, were neutered in a back four.
Enzo Fernandez, the most expensive player in English football history, gave the ball away for Oliver Skipp’s opener.
For the second goal, Raheem Sterling was marking Harry Kane at a corner. Sterling is a little winger, Kane is Tottenham’s most prolific goalscorer. Kane scored. Go figure.
So where are the signs here? Where is the pattern? Where are the hints that Potter might turn this around?
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Nobody takes any pleasure at pointing this out because everyone recognises Potter’s inherent decency.
But elite football management is no country for nice men.
Chelsea have won once in 11 gamesCredit: Alamy More
