Graham Potter’s Chelsea dream turning into a nightmare after another Man City defeat leaves season in tatters | Football News

Graham Potter’s dream set at Chelsea scared him to sleep.

Manchester City have done a lot of damage to him and his team this season, knocking them out of the Carabao Cup before Christmas, and leaving Chelsea in 10th place, 10 points from the top four, with a Premier League win at Stamford Bridge on Thursday.

And the 4-0 FA Cup demolition at the Etihad has now left Potter and his side reeling.

Everything that has gone wrong at Chelsea this term has been compounded: a team exhausted by injuries, uncertain in its structure, unable to get the ball on the pitch in dangerous areas and with a bite in the third third.

It’s not just their defeats to the elite City side that have wrecked Chelsea’s season, though.

Across eight rounds of Premier League games, Chelsea have won the fewest and scored the fewest goals. Brentford, Brighton and Nottingham Forest are among the teams taken away in that series.

They are on their worst league run since 2010, with their first FA Cup third-round exit since 1999.

The mutants were terrified and reluctantly recorded in what turned out to be a disastrous time. Potter must now be under enormous pressure and perhaps the new owner has not proven to be as ruthless as Roman Abramovich, so far.

The march of Chelsea fans, who waved footballs and chanted for their former owner and predecessor Thomas Tuchel Potter, is certainly running out of patience for this project.

But what went wrong so badly? Chelsea, the club still world champions, reached both domestic cup finals and finished best behind Man City and Liverpool last season. This is an incredible drop.

All of a sudden, the Champions League tie with Borussia Dortmund is looking at one safety this season – but can Potter turn this ship around?

Let’s take a closer look at the big issues facing Chelsea and Potter…

Injuries, instability and confusion

With Potter out of contention after Chelsea’s league defeat to Manchester City last Thursday, the circumstances have been reduced to a result that has left Chelsea with just six points from their eight Premier League games.

The quality of the names on the injury list highlights how the pitcher’s hands have been combined according to the team’s selection.

Edouard Mendy, Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Ben Chilwell, N’Golo Kante, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Raheem Sterling, Armando Broja, Christian Pulisic… Prior to Mason Mount’s recovery for Sunday’s FA Cup tie, Chelsea were only one center back. terribly wounded, xi.

The absence of James, with no similar replacement at right-back, was particularly damaging, depriving Chelsea of ​​one of their key attackers and limiting their ability to play in a wing-back system.

The scale of those injuries combined with the World Cup and the fixtures piled up on both sides of it also denied Potter a meaningful time wrestling with his best players.

Eleven of Chelsea’s 12 World Cup representatives have progressed beyond the group stage, marking a return to duty.

It’s left to the manager to mix and match from game to game, having to hand over teenagers Omari Hutchinson and Bashir Humphreys in the past week. Perhaps uncharacteristically, given all that disruption, no Premier League manager has made more team changes since October 1, when Potter first took charge of Chelsea.

The inconsistency of selection and formation – Chelsea started in seven different formations under Potter – did little for the stability of the team’s performance.

Injuries have also left them badly short on depth, with limited options on the bench. Against Man City in the league, Chelsea’s nine substitutes included four teenagers, two other players under 23, Jorginho (31) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (33).

“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Potter said of the injury crisis last week. It was the striker’s series of strikes that left Chelsea seemingly treading water, looking for short-term solutions to upset them. Success is a rare recipe and has hurt Chelsea throughout the competition.

Note the flaws in the frontline

Potter could not have foreseen the injury crisis that was going to happen when he took over at Chelsea but he would have been well aware of the team’s major attacking problems when he signed up for the project.

Tuchel and Frank Lampard before him couldn’t find the right formula in that area of ​​the pitch during their tenures and Potter seems equally at a loss as to what the solution is.

It started with Hakim Ziyech, Mason Mount, and Kai Havertz at the top against Man City on Sunday, after Sterling’s early injury last week disrupted their league plan.

But whatever combination Chelsea will go with, the stats don’t make for good reading. Chelsea – who did not have a shot in the first 45 at the Etihad – are the lowest scorers in the top 10.

In each of the first three games, Potter has failed to score twice or more and not score more than once in all but the last three 12. That doesn’t leave much margin for error on the other end.

Aubameyang, the striker signed in the summer as a response to Chelsea’s misfiring moments before the goal, fell. He sat out uncomfortably and again in the defeat to Man City at Stamford Bridge, there was no impact from him after a run of three goals in three games in early October, and he was nowhere to be seen on Sunday.

Havertz, who often got the nod to the touchline instead, has scored big goals for the club in the past, but his record of four in 16 Premier League appearances this term is a reminder that he will never be the prolific striker Chelsea seek. find out

Huge sums have been invested in players such as Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner, but Chelsea will have much more in this side in the future.

But it’s not necessarily about the last touch. Chelsea have scored more goals than the expected figures in the league this season. Their accidental creation is as much a fault.

On Sunday, the first touch in the opposition area came after 54 minutes, when the team lost according to how it broke through the opponents.

Only Bournemouth have had fewer shots at home in the Premier League; only Wolves had fewer shots on target in their patch. Their average figure of 11.1 shots per game prior to the league game with Man City was considered to be among the lowest output on Opta’s boards.

All this shows a lack of intensity and skill in attacking – and the creation of chances recalls that it is up.

Twelve teams have created more chances than Chelsea, whose figure of 20 is the same as relegation-threatened Verton. Their top chance creator, Sterling, also ranks in the Premier League’s top 30 for key passes.

A stunning change for a Chelsea team that had chosen to compete at the very top of the table.

Chelsea are crying out for a lethal striker – but their problems are still starting at the back. Their random creation is simply not enough.

Vanity fan

Unsurprisingly, given that attack output, Chelsea fans are frustrated and fed up with what they see from the side.

The mood at the Etihad looked to have shifted significantly on Sunday, with Chelsea’s tight-knit defense mostly collapsing, but their ignominy was forged at home.

Screamers could be heard as his team stepped up to a dangerous pitch against Man City next Thursday, but once again they left Stamford Bridge with no scoreline in sight.

Chelsea won only eight of their 16 home Premier League games in 2022, the fewest wins they have managed at home since 1996. The New Year also started on the wrong foot.

It all adds to the pressure on Potter and the players. These fans have been brought up for years of success over the past two decades, and they will not tolerate what they are now getting for their money.

The league loss to Man City means Chelsea haven’t been able to beat a top-half team this season for seven matches and haven’t laid the glove on Pep Guardiola’s side across two cup ties. There really wasn’t much for Blues followers to appreciate this term.

Jamie Carragher showed last week that, despite spending a Premier League record £278.4m in the summer transfer window, Chelsea are a long way from where they want to be.

Significant spending this January seems inevitable, with Benedict Badiashi already brought in, but given Chelsea’s raft of questions, can they simply buy their way out of trouble?

Instead, Potter needs to get lost in time and weather this storm until the injury crisis recedes. Perhaps then a clearer picture of Chelsea Potter will emerge.

But that means short-term pain for Chelsea supporters – and this is where patience has historically been in short supply. At the time of writing, before reaching the halfway point, Chelsea did not like it.

If Potter survives, it may be a few weeks or even months before the breakthrough.

This campaign has been a crushing blow for supporters and even new owner Todd Boehly, given the huge sums he would receive from Abramovich – and the knock-on costs of missing out on Champions League football next season if Chelsea fail. the top four will be expensive.

City have put Chelsea’s problems into sharp focus but the questions are being asked and there is no easy answer to what Potter and the players are looking at right now.