Jacob Steinberg had the short straw this week and had to ask Graham Potter about the issues highlighted in a viral video over the weekend, which showed Marc Cucurella’s obvious reluctance to play the ball to Mykhailo Mudryk ahead of him on the left.
Potter dismissed any talk of “sinister” dressing room issues entirely in quotes picked up by Football.London:
“There’s no problem in terms of anything sinister,” the Chelsea manager explained.
“If anything, it’s teammates understanding each other. It’s quite a common problem I’d say. When to pass? What point? What time? Playing against a back five, West Ham made it difficult to access the wideman’s feet or when to make the runs. Misha, that is his third game. So there’s no problem, it’s just a challenge of understanding.”
Potter points out what anyone with half a brain had already concluded. It’s nothing to do with personal problems (how could there be personal problems, they’ve only been in the same dressing room for a couple of weeks?), it’s just a matter of Cucurella being low on confidence, and not having any relationship on the pitch with Mudryk yet. He’s avoiding the pass because he’s afraid it will be cut out, not because he doesn’t like his teammate.
The rest is just noise.
Me fastidia que Potter no puntualice esas situaciones el debió corregir eso en el tramo del partido pero nunca le exigió a Cucurella dar un paso adelante y respetar los movimientos de Mudrik alguien tiene que golpear la mesa carajo