Usually when a manager arrives at a club midseason, it’s total chaos trying to get them ready for their first game.
Especially at top teams who play twice a week, there’s rarely more than a day or two for them to find a hotel and take the press photos before they have to head off on a team coach with their new squad and try to figure things out.
Just think back to Thomas Tuchel’s arrival at Chelsea at the start of 2021, with a 0-0 draw against Wolves coming just after he was appointed. Sometimes teams will even get the new man to watch the first game from the stands, to absolve him of any blame should things go badly.
That looked set to be the story when Graham Potter took charge at Chelsea last Thursday. He had just two days before his first game, the early kick off against Fulham on Saturday.
But the death of the Queen saw all games at the weekend postponed, and now Chelsea’s match against Liverpool this weekend has been put back too.
Running a Chelsea live scores service must be as confusing as it’s even been right now, and that’s certainly not going to get any easier when these postponed games are jammed into the calendar later in the season. The international break coming up after this weekend means that after tomorrow night’s Champions League match against Red Bull Salzburg, the Blues won’t play against until October.
It all puts Potter in a bizarre reverse of the usual situation. Rather than struggling for time to prepare his first game, he’s going to have to wait 23 days for his first league match.
Tomorrow night’s game will take on a ridiculous amount of significance in terms of predicting how his time at Chelsea will go, just because there will be nothing else to go on for weeks.
We’re sure he will appreciate all this time at the training ground getting to know people’s names, but for once this is a situation where a new coach is likely wishing he had a few more opportunities to see his players in action and start putting his ideas into practice.
The build-up for our game against Crystal Palace on the 1st of October is going to be truly exceptional for what would otherwise be a bog-standard league game, and the pressure will really be on already, especially if we don’t get a good result tomorrow night.
why would the pressure be more than it would have been if he had to take charge of a game immediately. any games as chelsea manager especially a new one would be considered high pressure because they were hired to perform above all else. This is actually a blessing in disguise as it allows mr,potter to bed in to his surroundings and get familiar with the staff and also to plan for the future. I would consider it more of a mini pre season as he will have time to work with the new players that arent on world cup duty as well as get familiar with the youth players. Why is the content here always so negative… its an opportunity, especially when youre saying most coaches get thrown straight into the fire…