Chelsea reportedly spent Ł274 million since the end of the previous season on new players and a new manager, yet they still managed to make their squad worse. That is a noteworthy accomplishment by the club's new owners, a group that includes Todd Boehly, a part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, for the time being at least, manager Graham Potter is taking the brunt of the heat for the team's underwhelming results and performances.
It always works out that way, and Potter, whose team is currently eighth in the Premier League, seven points behind fourth-placed Manchester United, won't be fooled into thinking that his future is always directly correlated with performance on the field.
The current record is dismal (two wins in seven games, four losses), and with two games this week against Manchester City (in the Premier League and FA Cup), things could get lot worse before they get better.
The Chelsea hierarchy, under the leadership of co-owner Boehly, sold Potter on their vision of a new Chelsea when he joined from Brighton in September to replace the fired Thomas Tuchel. It was a team that would make long-term plans, adopt a more collegiate philosophy, and give the bright young coach time to imprint his coaching philosophies on the team.
It appeared that Roman Abramovich's old Chelsea, when managers were hired and sacked as frequently as they took home major awards, was a thing of the past. But perhaps that notion was equally naive as Chelsea's hiring practices have been since the ownership transition. That ignorance is now starting to make Potter's work much more difficult. The 47-year-old requires assistance in order to handle the demands of running a team as large as Chelsea, but he is not the only one at Stamford Bridge who is picking up skills as they go.
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