Now’s time for Boehly to prove boom and bust era really is over
GRAHAM PoTTER’S Chelsea have not won in the Premier League since midoctober and that takes their new manager into tiresome territory. Speculation about his future has already begun.
It is ridiculous and boring and we can lay the blame for it at the door of Chelsea’s former owner Roman Abramovich, who was happy to oversee a 20-year cycle of boom and bust by regularly changing managers and overhauling the club’s squad.
Abramovich has gone now, replaced by American businessman Todd Boehly, and things are supposed to be different. We will find out soon enough whether they really are.
I was surprised when Potter left Brighton for Chelsea in September. He had twice spurned advances from Tottenham because he was unsure about working for chairman Daniel Levy. I presumed he would see just as many pitfalls at Chelsea.
But Potter was pitched a new vision by Boehly. He was told Chelsea were ready to build for the future, to follow a long-term recruitment strategy and to form a strong and functioning link between their academy and first team.
Had I been Potter I may have looked at the scattergun nature of Chelsea’s summer recruitment and wondered just how that married up to the version of the club I was being sold. But the 47-year-old took the job and now we wait.
It is easy to look at the Chelsea team and recognise the talent. Players like Mason Mount and Reece James should serve the club well for years.
But it is easy to see the problems too. The club’s squad lacks balance and depth in the right areas and continues to carry too many players bought for big money under Abramovich only to deliver sporadically.
Potter’s predecessor Thomas Tuchel warned late last season there was trouble ahead and he was right. He spent the summer worrying he was not going to be able to close the gap on Manchester City and Liverpool and within a few difficult earlyseason weeks he was gone.
Potter knows what Chelsea need. He sat at the club’s training ground before a game against Arsenal that was to be lost 1- 0 eight days ago and explained it.
Chelsea and Boehly need to establish a clear vision of what they would like the club to look like in three or four years’ time and stick to it.
This is what City and Liverpool have done. This is what Arsenal have done. This is what Chelsea have never done.
Potter’s team have struggled recently. His meddling with personnel and formations point to a man trying to find a way forward for a squad that often looks rather less than the sum of its parts.
He has made some mistakes. His approach to his return to Brighton last month was peculiar and his team lost 4-1.
But the fact remains Chelsea have hired a clever tactical manager whose instinct is always to look to the future, beyond the next game or the next result.
Time will tell if Potter has the rhino hide to cope with life at a very big club. There is no prep school for that.
But he has a vision of what he would like Chelsea to be and Boehly and the fans either buy into it and accept it may be a case of taking a step back to go forwards, or resign themselves to a future of yet more boom and bust, only without the safety net of Abramovich’s vast fortune.
Ian.Ladyman@dailymail.co.uk