Chelsea made their decision to sack Graham Potter public on Sunday night and it is one that will create problems for the Blues’ hierarchy down the line, states former footballer and pundit Stan Collymore.
Collymore believes Chelsea should have stayed put with Potter until the end of the season and allowed the English coach to trim his bloated squad and have a full pre-season to work with a core group of players. The West London club brought in several young players for the coach to develop and have thrown that away after the weekend’s defeat to Aston Villa in the hope that they can secure some sort of European football for next season.
In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, Collymore said: “I think what Chelsea needed to do and what they were desperate to do under Todd Boehly was to try and get a coach in to develop the best young players coming through – the Lukaku’s, Salah’s and De Bruyne’s of yesteryear – and buy in the best young players from around the world, which makes perfect sense. Basically Boehly blinked, and he blinked at a time when Chelsea should’ve held on.
“Chelsea were never going to get into the top four this season. Maybe Europe wasn’t out of the question, and the theory was Graham Potter was going to get to the end of the season, then he could get rid of about 15/20 bodies from an incredibly over-bloated squad and have a full pre-season with the players he then had.”
The former England international pointed to Mikel Arteta’s case at Arsenal and how long-term planning was successful for the Gunners: “Look at Mikel Arteta; when the pressure was on him the most, the Arsenal board said ‘no he’s not going’. I’m not a massive fan of Mikel but he’s rammed my words back down my throat because he’s a hop, skip and a jump away from winning the title.”
Collymore states that the sacking of Potter will now cause problems for Chelsea down the line as fans will now expect instant success and regular sackings if things on the field are not going right.
The pundit said: “That’s what Chelsea needed and Boehly’s got rid of the progressive coaching whilst spending a ton of cash. Fans are now going to expect him to spend the money and sack managers every six to eight months. That means Chelsea are always going to hover between fourth and sixth, might win the title once every seven years but that’s not going to be enough for Chelsea fans.
“Whoever comes in now has to know that the ‘sugar rush’ of hiring and firing managers is back at the Bridge and they can forget about proactive coaching and developing a team over a few years. Chelsea’s new manager has to know that it’s winning trophies in the here and now.”