The Harding Perspective

In a special edition of The London is Blue Dispatch, Joe Tweeds offers up nearly 4,200 words on the current state of affairs at Chelsea while the crew – Brandon, Dan, and Nick – prep for their trip to London at the end of next week.

Note: If you reside or are visiting London between March 3^rd-7^th, make sure to keep an eye on the London is Blue social accounts and the email newsletter. We’re shoring up details for 1) hosting a live show at Classic Football Shirts on Friday, March 3, 2023, 2) meeting up pre-match at the Cock Tavern and post-match The Atlas ahead of Leeds, Dortmund, and 3) finding a place to mingle (Craft Beer Cabin?) near Selhurst Park for the Conti Cup Final.

And now, over to Joe. - Dan

It has been an incredibly long time since I have written anything concerning Chelsea Football Club. My days of blogging (somewhat regularly) ended when I started to take podcasting more seriously. It does, however, feel somewhat appropriate to bring back The Harding Perspective at a time when Chelsea Football Club are at an incredibly important juncture in their rebuild process. After a multitude of poor results, Graham Potter's managerial tenure faced its greatest threat to date. The Southampton performance was woeful, even if those who subscribe to the altar of xG were tapping their signs furiously like a bus driver on the Simpson's. "Potter has coached a win!" they cried on Twitter post-Dortmund, but at the moment he cannot buy one.

Surely, the man overseeing Chelsea's relegation charge (please, accept my gallows humour) would see the sight of the dreaded Stamford Bridge corner flag in the morning?

As I write this (2023-02-20), Todd Boehly and co., have delivered a resounding "no" through the usual channels.

For a club so intent on distancing themselves from the previous regime and dunking on anyone (Tuchel) or anything (the culture) associated with the past, using the same tactics to try and onboard fans to the future of Potter Ball seems a bit disingenuous. We were promised openness, dialogue, and a club who would not conduct themselves surreptitiously in the shadows. Yet, as Phil (@chelseayouth) ightfully pointed out, even with seemingly more Directors of Football and Heads of This, That, and the Other, it still falls to Matt Law to communicate the club's message. I am, admittedly, a big fan of the new structure in place at the club. However, it is perplexing that in a moment where the project appears to be stalling before it gathers any momentum, the people safeguarding the technical heart of the club remain silent. In other footballing cultures, the Director of Football, Sporting Director etc., often will answer questions pertaining to matters beyond coaching. It would be nice to see someone at the club state their vision and the reasons they believe Potter is the man for the job.

Some things change, some stay the same.

Matt Law's excellent summation of an incredibly subtle club brief puts across "the five reasons Chelsea have not sacked Graham Potter yet." Manchester City's FFP lawyers would be impressed with the case for the defence.

-/~/- I will say, to caveat the below, that I absolutely do not have all the answers (or any, you may argue). These are just comments, concerns, and opinions against a very mundane club briefing and some food for thought. -/~

Behind the Scenes

Matt Law Summary: essentially, Graham Potter is an excellent coach on the training pitch and listened to his medical team when evaluating red zoned¹ players. They feel that repetition and "hard work" will soon change Chelsea's fortunes around. Oh, Potter and the board also collaborated on keeping Aubameyang out of the Champions League squad.

Grant de Smidt (a highly recommended follow and coach/consultant/analyst) regularly highlights how amateurish the current coaching setup is when it comes to conditioning: this thread is a decent read. I do not see the choice to rest players as some miraculous noteworthy decision. Conversely, I am not going to sit here and pick holes in the Aubameyang omission. Yes, he is/was a good finisher and goal scorer, but he has looked poor in a Chelsea shirt for a variety of reasons. You can argue that others have as well and you would be right, but the Aubameyang choice is not one I am going to drag Potter over the coals for.

What I will focus on, in particular, are the comments being briefed concerning training. When you are evaluating the effectiveness of implementing a game model, you are primarily looking at three different aspects: how unpredictable you are as a team, how effective you are at creating final touches² for your dangermen, and how adaptable you are to take advantage of your opponent's specific weaknesses.

When we talk about unpredictability, we are looking for repeatable mechanisms or patterns of play to continuously put our opponent's under pressure. These can be incredibly basic (Conte's CB → RW → CM → FW is a simple example where Luiz might play into Pedro, back to Cesc, who looks for the ball in behind to Costa in the space created by Pedro's deep run). If you have a game model and/or way of playing, these are concepts that should be relatively player agnostic. If you pin your entire ability to progress the ball on 2 or 3 players, when those players are unavailable, the world falls apart. You want to try and implement these patterns early and then evolve them as time progresses. To a large extent the complexity of your attacking patterns and ball progression is dependent on the quality of the players at your disposal. Better players make things easier from both a technical and decision making perspective.

We are not looking for Barcelona 2008-12 levels — just something to show some semblance of progress. The ultimate point being that a coach with a clear methodology gets players to execute his ideas, not chops and changes whimsically given who is available. If we start to build around Reece James, again, and he goes through another injury spell, what do you have to fall back upon? Reece should expand what you can do in every phase of the game, but there should still be simpler building blocks in place that a lesser skilled player can execute to ensure the team's basic system can still operate. Looking at other teams with new coaches, while they do face different problems to Chelsea in terms of a less compact defensive structure to attack, there is a clearer identity and manner of progressing the ball on display. Sean Dyche has Everton executing a simple version of his surprisingly modern 442 without the need for a preseason or a plethora of excuses. My caveat being that it is more difficult to coach a proactive and front-foot style of football, but I would still expect to see far more progress under Potter given his time in charge.

Looking at effectiveness, there is an argument that the lack of finishing quality within the squad makes it difficult to determine what the best situations to create for Chelsea's forwards are. Nevertheless, Chelsea's ability to create quality chances is haphazard at best: with a high degree of individuality and game state playing an enormous role. Only when Chelsea have entered into something more akin to a basketball game, did they look threatening against Borussia Dortmund and Southampton. What are the mechanisms and constructs that we are creating to put our difference makers (Mudryk, Madueke, Félix, Havertz, Fofana, Sterling et al.) in positions to have those "final touch" moments? What universal traits do our forwards have (perhaps a favourable ability to both create and finish cutbacks) and not have (any aerial ability whatsoever)? Can we identify a style of attacking that all of our forwards can impact positively?

Lastly, when we look at adaptability, we are determining the tweaks that Potter is making to specifically target Chelsea's opponents. If you know that Borussia Dortmund have a sprinter like Karim Adeyemi up top, perhaps dropping your defensive structure to a low or mid block is appropriate. Perhaps do not leave someone on the halfway line who has no chance of matching him for pace if they counter from a corner. It could also be realising that Southampton's press and midfield were overwhelming the Chelsea double pivot during the build-up phase in the first half. This could prompt an adaptation from Potter at half-time: bringing on some physicality into midfield or by having a manner to create numerical superiority centrally was required to gain some control and calm the game down.

We lack any form of unpredictability, because we have established no repeatable mechanisms of ball progression or attacking patterns. We equally lack the ability to construct effective moments for our difference makers, instead having to ditch a lot of the pre-planned tactical instruction for a more gung-ho "you attack, then we'll attack" game plan. Finally, our ability to adapt our game model to strike at the very core of our opponent's weaknesses is virtually non-existent, because we essentially have zero identity under Graham Potter.

Anger Management

Summary: despite his calm demeanour, which the press have poked at, there are examples of Potter having had "tough conversations" with players in the dressing room and during individual meetings. He is actually "intense" and Cobham and the club are briefing that they do not feel the job is too big for him. The club now start to point fingers at Thomas Tuchel (why?) and juxtapose him with Potter's approach. Tuchel apparently throws people under the bus, whereas Potter apparently saying "he isn't the problem" is markedly different.

Emerging "reports" (and I use that term somewhat loosely) tonight seem to point towards Potter's relationships with "some players" teetering of the edge. There is disinterest in him and his work during tactical sessions. With Belle Silva's faux-pax (liking a tweet calling Potter clueless) and the team looking far more threatening when not playing to the initial gameplan, are things really that rosy behind the scenes? This whole point does feel very underhanded and perhaps speak to an inability to connect with Chelsea fans. Pointing fingers at a Champions League winning coach, who perhaps overachieved with this squad, and who had a real connection with Chelsea supporters is not exactly going to endear anyone to the new regime. Have a bit more decorum, chaps. Continually making tenuous jabs at the previous ownership, when that owner gave Chelsea fans absolutely everything, is poor. We could perhaps even learn a bit from our own history by looking at how to create the sort of culture the club had during 2004-12.

Potter's downbeat midtable mentality, certainly in post-match scenarios, may reflect a lot of the reality of the game. Quite often I feel like he is speaking honestly and candidly, delivering a version of the truth through a particular prism. However, when you cannot buy a goal, let alone a win, having the same jargonese platitudes tossed out after matches can absolutely wear thin. My major concern is that, again, all this "intensity" that is being promulgated as a positive is not reflecting in performances or an improvement in the intensity of Chelsea's play. These post-match sound bites, painting the club as some plucky midtable outfit are beginning to lose Potter any potential relationship with Chelsea fans. For a coach who is seemingly being praised for his ability to take ownership (unlike Tuchel), his 'I'm not the problem' comments do little to suggest otherwise. If he is not the problem, can he tell us who is? The players? The coaching staff? The board? The multiple Directors of Football?

Some questions I have been pondering, given Potter does not see himself as an issue:

• Why did it take a complete abandonment of his tactical setup to place Dortmund and Southampton under sustained pressure?

• Why are players playing with more fluidity when they are free from your initial tactical setup?

• Why does your current game model not generate any control during any phase of the game?

• How are you going to produce more high quality "final touches" for Chelsea's plethora of attacking talent?

Bravery

Summary: coaches and top managers do not like to take on new jobs, mid-season (!!!). Potter had the bravery to leave an incredibly stable setup at Brighton. Equally, while they acknowledge results have not been good, they believe that Potter deserves at least one pre-season. He is also "paying the price for the problems he inherited". There is not another top coach who "would be brave enough to take the current squad with three months of the season to run [...]".

Oh boy. Chelsea, having some of the most incredibly aggressive owners in recent memory, with their talented squad, their ability to spend, the prestige of the Chelsea job, (I can go on), would struggle to attract candidates? Even when Chelsea used to chop and change managers like it was going out of fashion, the job was always one of the most coveted in world football. Is it really brave to leave a mid-table team to take over the most successful club in England during the 21st Century? It feels like a wonderful promotion. Plus, it takes an incredibly brave person to do all this for only £60m over 5-years. I feel like this part of the brief comes across as very condescending to fans. It tries to pretend that Chelsea fans do not see the club in the light it should be seen in. "Oh, wasn't Graham brave to leave Brighton for a chance to manage one of the biggest clubs in world football."

I do entirely sympathise with the state of the squad.; it has probably been my most consistent point of contention with the club since 2012. The fact that there are so many differing profiles within the squad makes it virtually impossible to play a uniform style of football. However, this has been the case for 7+ years. Why is this now an acceptable crutch to lean upon? Likewise, what progress has Potter (or the club) made in resolving any of this? Hakim Ziyech was a signature away from signing for PSG, but has now played ~ 50% of the available minutes we have had post-window. Was he not in our plans and now suddenly is in them? We were happy for him to leave, but now our expensive January signings are going to sit behind him periodically until the summer?

I certainly have the most empathy for this area, but I do equally feel that I have seen little to suggest that Potter is capable of fixing the sins of the past. In any sport I have played, you have to earn the right to play. You start with a basic set of principles, reducing your overall game model to its minimum viable parts. What are the absolute basics of the basics that I need this team to execute to move in the correct direction of travel? We are months into the Potter tenure at this point and I am yet to fathom what this direction of travel is. Defending in a mid-block 442, and struggling to create without stretching the game to the point where we virtually break, is hopefully not the end goal.

I do not think any coach deserves a preseason, you have to earn that (like the above). What if this stale and haphazard football persists? Is it magically going to change over the summer? Are players suddenly going to buy-in to what he is asking them to do? A smaller squad is going to miraculously make Chelsea look infinitely more threatening? There seems to be an awful lot of people who are assuming that things will definitely improve over time. What makes them so sure? I am genuinely intrigued by this. Answers on a postcard, please.

Mo' time, mo' problems. Or something like that. If the current status quo persists, or there is very little progress, are the club going to head into next season with Potter at the helm?

Pain Game

Summary: the new owners knew that they would need to rebuild when they bought the club and this rebuild would be painful. They estimated three transfer windows to rebuild the squad and one-year to nail the correct staff. The summer window has created more problems than it solved. Potter would never have constructed the squad this way, but the January signings are more in line with his vision. Potter has been told to don his tin hat and fight through a difficult period.

On this, I want to talk a little bit about Potter's end game. Brighton were effectively a Diet Coke version of Tuchel's team at Chelsea. Defensive possession, great ball retention, a slower tempo, emphasis on keeping the ball, with an incredibly even xG & xGA. In 2021/22, and the beginning of this season, Brighton were intensely focused on possession, but lacked pressing intensity or a quick transition. Potter spoke about becoming more aggressive over time at Brighton, but this took almost three seasons to implement. Brighton's ability to mix short build up with long is not something as easily replicable at a club of Chelsea's stature. Teams naturally defend deeper, making the direct option over the top or even into feet a far less reliable mechanism of retaining possession.

For all of this complexity and tactical flexibility that think pieces praised Potter for, my one overarching question is: was it truly effective?

If you dipped your head beneath the glossy veneer of football hipster adoration for Potter's Brighton, there are some interesting points. While he had a difficult time at Swansea, finishing 10th, Steve Cooper managed to steer them into the playoffs twice after replacing him. Cooper plays a far more pragmatic style of football and was not well-liked at Swansea, yet he achieved far more when putting substance over style. Likewise, "Potter can't finish the chances" seems to be a criticism that has followed him from Brighton to Chelsea. Is that a coincidence? Who knows? But his teams did not produce an elite xG number, while conceding an xGA virtually identical to their xG. This to me suggests a rather flamboyant approach failed to deliver anything meaningful.

Potter clearly transformed Brighton after Hughton departed and played a far more aesthetically pleasing style of football. But, to reference my earlier question, is it effective? Are Chelsea driving towards a point on the horizon, this South Coast panacea, that is not going to yield anything beyond pretty possession? Do we have three years to move beyond being "a bit too safe and not looking for that pass" (Potter speaking about Brighton in May 2022)?

Chelsea have signed a tonne of attacking talent, who likely will prosper in a team that can press high, move the ball directly and aggressively, while playing at a tempo few can match. Does this sound like the perfect marriage with Potter's tactical approach at Brighton?

City’s Example

Summary: City are the blueprint. Pep's first season wasn't great (it was a damn sight better than what we are seeing... and City were playing Kolarov at centre back an awful lot!!!). Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart are the perfect people to work with. The January signings are players who can "thrive under him and in his style". Success won't come from changing the manager all the time.

As with the above, are the January signings perfect for Graham Potter's tactics? I read so much praise about Marc Cucurella being a "tactical unicorn" under Potter and his innovative use of players and flexibility. Yet, where is Cucurella's form? Even as a conventional full-back? Let alone one expected to do weird and wonderful things? Where is this flexibility? Do the players we've signed, who look like they'll thrive in a direct attacking philosophy, really fit with the heavy possession based style that Potter created at Brighton? Do Chelsea have the clinical finishers to overcome the lack of xG? Chelsea's xG and xGA are virtually identical under Potter -- a hallmark of Brighton in Y2 and Y3 of Potter's coaching. Generally speaking, a top three side will be +20 when it comes to their xG vs xGA and Manchester City are +30. Does the end goal, the vision of Graham Potter, move Chelsea towards a style of play that superbly limits big chances for opponents, while regularly producing 2-3 xG per game?

I have often spoken about how difficult making up that 20-35 point gap since Conte's second season has been for Chelsea. Unfortunately, we have been nowhere domestically for years. Likewise, generating a +20/+30 swing in xG is going to take an incredible amount of work that goes beyond signing a few players. That work is not something you can honestly claim is reflected in Potter's CV. His body of work is, at best, small incremental improvements over a long period of time. That kaizen approach is not going to create the kind of wholesale developments required to bridge the gap between Chelsea and other top teams.

I desperately want whatever this current version of Chelsea is to work. I think Potter's journey to become Chelsea's manager is incredibly inspiring. When the media started to put the boot into him, I resented it. This notion, though, that things will just get better with time does fly in the face of what we are watching. Taking a long-term view on a manager is absolutely fine and something I would implore, but it has to be the right one. The end goal is ultimately what concerns me. Graham Potter has produced a very aesthetically pleasing and fútbol purist team in Brighton that lacked cutting edge: they threatened as much as they were threatening. Even at the peak of his powers, this trend was only marginally moving in a direction that would see Brighton stabilise as an upper midtable team. Andy Forrester, a First Team Data Analyst at Newcastle, characterised Graham Potter's Brighton tenure in a neat infographic.

Is the game model that Potter implemented at Brighton, with the same fundamental issues being transported to Chelsea, going to bridge an ever increasing gap to the teams above us? Adding a striker is not going to generate 20-30 points or help find a greater xG/xGA differential. There is a larger structural reform required, of which little has happened during Potter's reign. What people are saying is that with the perfect conditions: the reduction of the squad size, more time, a striker, a holding midfielder, another forward, more training time, less injuries to key players, likely playing once a week next season etc., that Potter has the skillset to compete for a Premier League title.

What remains from this exploration is that Potter is going to be here next season. Having survived the weekend, the only time to make a change that impacts this season would be now. Given that, at the time of writing, he is still very much in charge, I can only assume that he will lead Chelsea into the Dortmund game. Whether we see any meaningful progress remains to be seen, but the club's briefing and very public stance confirms he has the freedom to work as he sees fit. You can use every excuse under the sun to justify his poor performance, but there are still multiple things I have not seen answered.

Has Potter regularly made a difference in terms of changing shapes or with his subs during games? Why does he need to often abandon his initial setup, to something so unstructured to make us more fluid? How long does it really take to implement some semblance of repeatable patterns to help the side build possession and play through the thirds? Are we so reliant upon on a handful of key players, that other international footballers cannot execute a basic set of instructions? What has he shown at Chelsea that makes people so confident sticking with him is the right answer? How has he handled the conditioning side of players so poorly?

One of my favourite football phrases is that 'the quality of the attacking phase will depend on that of the defence and vice versa'. Are we to then conclude that the quality of Potter's virtually identical xG/xGA means that the quality of Chelsea in both sides of the game is incredibly average? What message of hope does that promote for the future? I truly wish he can turn this around and I genuinely want him to be successful. I would love nothing more than any concern I have raised to be addressed and he goes on to become this stalwart who completely rebuilds the club into a juggernaut. My doubts though, are very real. But, here's hoping.

¹ Red Zoning refers to the three zones players fall into when it comes to fitness levels. In an effort to stop injuries occurring, players entering the red zone are generally perceived to be significantly at risk of becoming injured if they overly exert themselves.

² Final touches refer to situations where your players are playing the final pass for someone to shoot, a cross or cutback, or shooting. It is the "final touch" in an attacking sequence when it comes to creating shots or taking them.