Potter in Tuchel dig? Chelsea manager in cryptic pre-season complaint

Robin Bairner

• Updated: 24 Feb 2023 14:25 GMT
• 3 min read

Chelsea manager Graham Potter has sought to defend his record at Stamford Bridge by claiming that the club’s pre-season campaign has undermined what has happened since.

The Blues are used to challenging for the top spots in the Premier League but instead find themselves 10th and unlikely to qualify for the Champions League next season.

Following a record spend of more than £600 million in the past two transfer windows, this represents an alarming return for the Stamford Bridge outfit, who have found scoring goals particularly difficult this season.

MORE: Potter laughs off Chelsea sack talk with 'crisis meeting' joke

While former Brighton manager Potter accepts that results have not been good enough and fans have the right to be angry, he has also suggested that part of the reason it has been such a challenging season for the Blues pre-dates his arrival at the club in September.

Speaking to the press prior to Sunday’s Premier League derby with Tottenham, he claimed: “Speaking to a few of the experienced guys, they said it was the worst pre-season they've had. I don't want to speak about that [the reasons]. The tour didn't work as well as it would like.”

By giving little away about the failure of the tour, which saw Chelsea play three matches in the USA and two against Udinese in Italy, Potter leaves the reasons of its ‘failure’ open to interpretation.

MORE: How much would it cost Chelsea to sack Graham Potter?

What happened on Chelsea’s 2022 summer tour?

Certainly, Chelsea’s pre-season results were not poor, with the exception of a 4-0 loss to Arsenal in Orlando, and indeed over the two weeks that their pre-season matches took place, they netted more goals than they have in the first two months of 2023 under Potter.

Moreover, they had a week-long pre-season training camp at UCLA’s world-class sporting facilities, which have been used by the Blues in previous years and were a favourite of former manager Jose Mourinho.

Indeed, blaming pre-season exonerates everyone at the club from blame as it was arranged under the previous ownership before Todd Boehly took command.

It also hints that there might have been an issue with previous manager Thomas Tuchel, who was swiftly sacked in September after a shock Champions League loss to Dinamo Zagreb.

Potter has certainly been given more leeway than his predecessor by Boehly, though failure to beat Tottenham on Sunday will see the pressure ramp up further on the Chelsea manager.