[Football] Potter [NOT] at Chelsea

[Guinness Boy]

Can you understand why some people are struggling to take things that you say seriously when you're always adapting your opinion to whatever direction the wind is currently blowing? I think that somewhere deep inside you might just, with very small margins, have enough self-awareness to understand that this is what you're very frequently doing when it comes to a lot of topics.

"If you never change your mind, why have one?" - Edward De Bono

You, however, will remain convinced by conspiracy theories and the cult of Potter for the whole of your life, while calling other people sheep.

 

[raymondo]

I agree, especially after this latest ongoing shopping spree, gathering Europe’s best.

Nsc is going to really hate The Chavs next summer. A Merseyside journalist is reporting that Caicedo will ultimately join Chelsea.

I shall hope that Caicedo () and his agent () have more sense than that, but...

 

[Iggle Piggle]

True, and perhaps we don’t have that run of Dunk doesn’t get sent off at OT and misses the Burnley game, Maupay doesn’t miss a pen home to Norwich etc. Overall we were great for most of the season, terms like ‘downward spiral’ is just a bit ludicrous.

Agree with you though, far too much is placed on managers, whether players finding goalscoring form and belief, defensive strength and cutting out errors, some of it is just the players collectively clicking at the same time.

I don't think we are far away in opinions. We were well worth a point at Man Utd even with 10 and got absolutely nothing from a homer ref that night. On another night we were worth 3 points but we had so many of those games under GP it was like groundhog day. GP would always come out after those games and talk about playing to our levels and the performance and we were unlucky. In the Man Utd game it wasn't wrong either.

The key difference between him and De Zerbi is that he seems to demand and generate improvement. Making your own luck if you will. The players appear more direct and decisive meanwhile Chelsea can't score (they don't have a decent forward either which has a certain irony). In that scenario of 7 without a win we'd see a much different tone from DZ and more change as well (accepting I could never pick a GP line up from week to week). We haven't seen the flip side of this yet - it will go spectacularly wrong at some point - but it's much better watch and listen as a fan.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Stop saying it then.

16th and 40 ish points isn't highly successful. It's par at best.

I'd love to know if you were having a drink with say Lewis or Solly you would just tell them that during 19/20 and 20/21 as a team they were bang average, par at best. That is what you are saying basically.

 

[jackalbion]

Depends on what you mean with highly successful, I suppose. Managed to achieve everything he was supposed to do... with close to a £0 net spend. Not saying its a fantastic accomplishment - just that no one else has accomplished it.

Yup, a stronger Swansea did manage to hoofball themselves into a better position with Steve Cooper. He's a good manager (albeit a destructive one) and had better and more players to his disposal.

He did chose to go to Chelsea, yes. If they or another team with gigantic resources come for De Zerbi... prepare to be taught a disappointing lesson how the world functions.

The Only thing with De Zerbi is hasn't spent his entire time at Brighton saying how much he is loyal to the club, and everything here is perfect, unlike potter who was disingenuous at best and a snake at worst when he decided in 24 hours that mad Todd would be a better a more trusting owner than Tony Bloom, which is why when his time does come to go it will be incredibly funny.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

"If you never change your mind, why have one?" - Edward De Bono

As someone who backed Stoke to win the Championship this year, I concur.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

Been saying this since the day he left, I don’t think he is a manager who can deal with and get respect from Superstar players with massive egos. Not a big enough character and has won nothing yet so easily dismissed and ignored by Prima donnas, we’ll see though…maybe.

Takes nothing away from his ability as a manager though with level headed and hard working players, he is excellent.

At the elite level, Potter has no real pedigree as a player or a manager. No trophies. No claim to have achieved real success at a major club. Over 120 PL games he averaged 1.22 pts per game ( over 38 games....46 pts ) With top players, if your career doesn't command respect, then you have to hit the ground running, make them sit up and take notice and surprise and refresh them on the training ground. They have to buy into you quickly.
The evidence at Chelsea suggests that this isn't the case with the seasoned, top players.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I don't think we are far away in opinions. We were well worth a point at Man Utd even with 10 and got absolutely nothing from a homer ref that night. On another night we were worth 3 points but we had so many of those games under GP it was like groundhog day. GP would always come out after those games and talk about playing to our levels and the performance and we were unlucky. In the Man Utd game it wasn't wrong either.

The key difference between him and De Zerbi is that he seems to demand and generate improvement. Making your own luck if you will. The players appear more direct and decisive meanwhile Chelsea can't score (they don't have a decent forward either which has a certain irony). In that scenario of 7 without a win we'd see a much different tone from DZ and more change as well (accepting I could never pick a GP line up from week to week). We haven't seen the flip side of this yet - it will go spectacularly wrong at some point - but it's much better watch and listen as a fan.

Agreed Piggle, loving RDZ! I think he is a shot in the arm, said on another thread, trusting the players to take risks even more, getting them forward, creating an environment to take those risks - because you can't expect players to take risks then make a mistake then you drop them for doing so, players have to feel trusted to do what they're doing.

Very early to look too much into things, but Forest and Villa at home, Brentford away and maybe Arsenal at home give a glimpse at what can go wrong. Fortunately they didn't come in a consecutive run, so the wins have compensated for when it hasn't gone to plan.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I'd love to know if you were having a drink with say Lewis or Solly you would just tell them that during 19/20 and 20/21 as a team they were bang average, par at best. That is what you are saying basically.

Nope. I'm saying they weren't highly successful (I'll just emphasise that word Swanny used again). It's the equivalent of Klopp finishing third.

 

[dwayne]

I'd love to know if you were having a drink with say Lewis or Solly you would just tell them that during 19/20 and 20/21 as a team they were bang average, par at best. That is what you are saying basically.

No.

Meeting expectations is nothing to be ashamed of. If they had finished midtable they would have exceeded and relegation Would have been underachieving.

They still did well. Just nothing special.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Nope. I'm saying they weren't highly successful (I'll just emphasise that word Swanny used again). It's the equivalent of Klopp finishing third.

These were your quotes:
"No they weren't. One successful season here, two bang average."
"It's par at best."

There is quite a bit of ground between them not being highly successful and being bang average.

 

[Bold Seagull]

No.

Meeting expectations is nothing to be ashamed of. If they had finished midtable they would have exceeded and relegation Would have been underachieving.

They still did well. Just nothing special.

Don't disagree with you there. Think the progress they made in terms of style, tactics etc. probably was getting towards special because that is still bearing fruit today, but those first 2 seasons under Potter, don't think even I could argue results should have been better.

 

[rogersix]

Highly successful?

A few promotions and a win at Arsenal with some Swedish farmers is ok I suppose. 10th with Swansea in the Championship. Well, it was a bit uppity of them to be in the Premier League all that time. And two bang average seasons with Brighton before finishing 9th in the last 45 minutes of the season.

Absolute riches compared to Klopp or Zindane, I'll grant you.

he must of been quite successful as chelsea offered him a job,

you're still upset, aren't you, cuddle?

 

[Guinness Boy]

These were your quotes:
"No they weren't. One successful season here, two bang average."
"It's par at best."

There is quite a bit of ground between them not being highly successful and being bang average.

Par is exactly right. We finished where our squad spend was and around where the bookies expected in those two seasons, won only one home game in the whole of 2020 and failed against both poor side (Sheffield United) and good (the Man City thrashing) during lockdown.

If you're taking "bang average" to mean "not really average at all" then that's not correct but that's your interpretation of the phrase. We hit our marks. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Brian Fantana]

The fact that RDZ is getting a SHEDLOAD more goals consistently out of the same group of players doesn't reflect especially well on GP, IMO.

 

[rogersix]

This is all fair. But I genuinely believe we had the 9th best squad so I still don't believe potter was working any kind of miracle.

The recruitment team are the heros in the piece.

that's very specific, when did you decide we had the 9th best squad?

after we had finished 9th?

 

[Swansman]

Nope. I'm saying they weren't highly successful (I'll just emphasise that word Swanny used again). It's the equivalent of Klopp finishing third.

...but you said like five minutes ago they were bang average.
Oh right yeah, your quote about how changing opinions every five minutes is the way to go.

Here's another couple of quotes:
"If you change your mind all the time, you're fickle and making it very simple for yourself, and can not learn from being wrong in the past - because you never realise you get it wrong."

"There is a time to change your mind, after deep consideration of the facts available. However, spinning around like a windcock in a tornado just to fit whatever narrative you have at the time only makes you a man without principles and steady ideas, which is pretty f***ing dumb not to mention silly."

Both these come from a Swedish philosopher, mr S. Wansman.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Par is exactly right. We finished where our squad spend was and around where the bookies expected in those two seasons, won only one home game in the whole of 2020 and failed against both poor side (Sheffield United) and good (the Man City thrashing) during lockdown.

If you're taking "bang average" to mean "not really average at all" then that's not correct but that's your interpretation of the phrase. We hit our marks. Nothing more, nothing less.

The bookies had us to go down at 2/1. Not 41 points and 15th in 19/20. That 2020 home stat, only 4 of those home games had a crowd. Funny that.

Where we finished isn't the only benchmark of what constitutes average or success. Where we are now is down to progress, continual improvement, it hasn't just happened. Even RDZ's brilliant 21 goals from 11 games has a symmetry with 24 goals from GP's final 11 games. 45 goals in 22 league games is unbelievable. It's all linked up.

I really like RDZ, I think he is more exciting, more engaging, tactically brave, determined and absolutely think he is going to continue to take us forwards. Already completely sold on him. Great bit of business we've done, to have RDZ lined up is just a work of genius as said before.

 

[Nobby]

Is it ok to say that I never liked Potter much....

And that I really don't like him now.....

 

[Springal]

The fact that RDZ is getting a SHEDLOAD more goals consistently out of the same group of players doesn't reflect especially well on GP, IMO.

To be fair it was starting to click. His last 10 games contained a lot of goals - compared to RDZs there’s only 1 goal in it I think, except we are conceding more now