The team survived the stress: Tuchel’s unexpected resignation.
Potter spins
Graham is not the second Benitez, but in Milan the coach freed only five people from the squad that defeated Wolverhampton in London. Match after match, the league saw seven substitutions, only one of which was forced. Potter seems to wink at the new garments. Look, you and Tuchel have been a good team. Havertz and Aubameyang come out on top, Broya shone, and each has a different approach and separate style of football.
Sterling, Gallagher, Pulisic, and even bitter Ziyech were getting their minutes with the new coach. The plan isn’t smart, but it works. They prove to anyone with solid competitors that there are many tournaments, the schedule is busy, despite the postponed matches. Everyone will be given the opportunity to reveal their winning cards. Chilwell and Cucurella played on the left wing, while James and Azpilicueta played on the right. Even in the middle of the field, where stability and rotation are needed.
Jorginho raced with Kovacic and Loftus-Cheek. It is a pity that there is no Kante. Potter is afraid to give a date for when Ngolo returns to the field. Top San Francisco insiders have reported that the Frenchman has been sidelined for three months due to a recurring injury and will miss the World Cup. Perhaps as Potter’s basic schemes are “4-2-3-1” and “3-4-2-1”, there are only two midfielders, so after Kante’s return, he will look for a new club.
The coach trusts the young players
Chelsea cannot be a youth team. Aubameyang, Kante, Sterling, Silva, Coulibaly, Jorginho, Mendy and Azpilicueta are many years old. But alongside Fofana, Broya, James, Gallagher, Chalobah, Havertz and, above all, Mount. The 23-year-old Englishman is at the heart of Potter’s Chelsea tactics. When they play “4-2-3-1”, we see how the attacking midfielder gets up in line with the striker, which allows Chelsea to keep the intensity of the pressure at the level of Liverpool and Leeds.
The basics do not shine for some young people: it is clear that Broya has few chances, but for Gallagher or Fofan the decisive segment of the club’s season is coming. They need to show themselves, because the competition is solid. It is a pity that Arsen Zakharyan was not enveloped in this confidence for the Chelsea youth squad. It is clear that Sterling and Mount are better prepared, they are the main players of the English team. But after Tuchel’s departure, Arsen may also gain experience, which will now pass and go to other young masters.
True, not everything is going smoothly for Chelsea. Only against Wolverhampton were there quality goals and chances. But Broya has already scored, Pulisic has scored. Havertz has two balls inside Premier League. Gallagher opened someone else’s gate. You can trust not only Aubameyang and Sterling. James is also important. Regardless of the lineup, the sidewalls will be the key to creating a new tactic that includes a lot of front movement, allowing you to gather flocks of Chelsea players on patches of the pitch – controlled chaos.
The team was lucky
Tuchel may have more or less the same results, but he and Potter have different personalities. Nobody will say that Thomas left a bad team. His transfer decisions can also help the team from a distance. Sure, they overpayed for Fofan. Also, they found no one better than old Aubameyang at the center of the attack instead of Lukaku. Ronaldo and Neymar are not in Chelsea, but there are Koulibaly, Cucurella and Sterling. You can work with these players after the World Cup.
Potter will have more than a month to analyze the path followed and then the epilogue Premier League and playoffs Champions League. Chelsea strengthened their group positions with two wins over Milan, where they started with a defeat in Zagreb and a draw against Salzburg. It remains to take revenge on the Croats and Austrians, and the world with the latter on the conscience of Potter himself. In front of us there will certainly be the first defeat of the new Chelsea manager, it must be lived properly. There will be games where the defense will perform worse.
Chelsea have a honeymoon where you can score twice out of three shots on goal, but that won’t always be the case. The victories are deserved, they have begun to concede less, they go to the selection in the opposing half of the field. At the same time, Tomori’s red card should not be forgotten: the Chelsea graduate left Milan in the minority, which facilitated the task of his native club. But geometrically, the team’s play has become much more difficult than it was in the last few games with Tuchel. Potter had the chance of a lifetime.
It can be seen that the mentor understands this, but remains himself: a simple boy from the English provinces. For example, Graham had his hair and beard cut by one of Chelsea’s fashionable barbers. For the compliments that the coach now looks cooler, Graham honestly said he didn’t get it. But the hairdresser’s services were much more expensive than expected. Was it this simplicity in every sense that Chelsea lacked? Potter has made many smart decisions.
It can damage the program
Only temporarily the ambitions within the team do not work against the new manager. Potter has to bench incredible players. Kepa has become the main goalkeeper, but Mendy is no exception. Koulibaly and Fofana want to play all the time, but they can’t. Sterling won’t always succumb to Gallagher and Pulisic in silence. Aubameyang, despite his age, with the character of a young man. And since the “3-5-2” pattern did not take root – Pierre-Emerick and Havertz did not create an ideal duet, even the Gabonese and the German can look at each other over time. Separate duels within the team, such as Chilwell and Cucurelli, are obvious and do not promise a peaceful outcome.
At the moment, Potter is lucky with everything: opponents’ game plans, selection of schemes, even individual referee decisions. This will not always be the case. Manchester United, SM and Arsenal, against whom he will play before the World Cup, will create a lot of problems for a team whose attacking line is effective only in combination with a decent play in defense. The support zone doesn’t always take a hit. The new mentor did not need the pure destroyer Zakaria. It is also fortunate that the match against Liverpool seems to take place only next year, there is nowhere to put it on the calendar. Potter is already waiting for matches in two days for the third.
A mentor has never had such a high-level program in his life. This is the newcomer in the Champions League. We can tell that Graham is still working on Tuchel’s luggage and spin fuel. But the duel against ten Hags in a week’s time should already be taken seriously. Chelsea have nine games ahead of them in four weeks. And even if the problems to reach the playoffs must be solved Champions League, and the game against Manchester City was a cup game, four wins in a row only helped to cope with the excitement. There are more difficult tasks for the coach: show clarity, find the optimal pattern and make transfer bets.
