Chelsea: ‘Graham Potter is better than Pochettino’

Carlo Garganese

24 Apr 2024 07:57 CDT
3 min read

Graham Potter was a better manager for Chelsea than Mauricio Pochettino, claims former Blues midfielder Craig Burley.

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Pochettino is under severe pressure on Wednesday following a humiliating 5-0 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates on Tuesday evening.

This result has only served to confirm what a disastrous 2023-24 season it has been for Chelsea during Pochettino’s first year in charge as manager.

The Blues have gone another season without winning a trophy, and are struggling down in ninth place in the Premier League with no chance of qualifying for the Champions League and a fight on their hands to make it into Europe.

This is all despite Chelsea owner Todd Boehly’s transfer spending being over €1 billion in less than two years.

And Burley believes that Pochettino has done even worse than his much-maligned predecessor Potter.

What did Burley say?

“I’m not suggesting Graham Potter is Guardiola or Klopp,” Burley said on ESPN.

“People said ‘This job’s too big for him, he’s English, he’s never played at any level, he managed in Scandinavia, this is Chelsea.

“Can you categorically say he was as bad as this? It wasn’t as bad as this [under Potter] last year.

“It is nonsense the fans who said ‘this job was too big for him’.”

© IMAGO - Pochettino is under pressure at Chelsea

Potter had a disastrous time of things at Chelsea after replacing Thomas Tuchel as manager in the early weeks of the 2022-23 season.

Despite a world record transfer outlay from Chelsea owner Todd Boehly, the Blues found themselves in a dire position at the time of Potter’s sacking.

They were down in 11th position in the Premier League, 11 points off Champions League qualification with just 10 games to go.

Boehly had attempted to be patient with Potter but that patience ran out and he brought in Frank Lampard as caretaker manager until the end of the season before hiring Pochettino permanently for this campaign.