Chelsea, presented Potter: “Super players”

“It’s been 7 days, but honestly it feels like 7 months.” Graham Potter first enters Stamford Bridge as Chelsea manager. It is his he presentation press conference in the club he boarded last Thursday, when the Blues presented him with that challenge that he could not refuse. One that begins with the Champions League, on the stage where the 47-year-old who until last week coached Brighton never set foot, with the 21 Italian home game against Salzburg. “In this team there are important ambitions: why not start with the Champions League?”.

CHALLENGE

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Potter was thinking about Brighton and how to turn off the enthusiasm after the umpteenth departure launched when the call from Chelsea arrived: “You never know what awaits you, in football as in life – he says -. These last few days have been incredible, with very intense conversations. The owners impressed me a lot on a human level, they gave me the idea of ​​being intelligent people who have had enormous success in their lives and who now want to have it in football as well. They showed me their ideas for growing the club, their projects. I am happy to have chosen Chelsea and I can’t wait to start ”. An adventure that starts not without risk: Potter has never coached at this level, he has never had the responsibility of a team like the Blues, one that plays to win. “There is a risk in everything in life, even walking down the street. I left everything, including my wife’s job, to go to Sweden and take an opportunity with a fourth division team that had always sacked the manager in the 5 seasons before my arrival. But this is life: you have to get out of your comfort zone and find out if there is something else for you, something more important ”.

IMPACT

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The most important thing Potter found it in Cobham, the Chelsea training center where he took up residence on Friday. And where, after making it clear that he will only be a coach, he is thinking about how to impose himself, how to win this new challenge that he has decided to accept. “I found a very honest, responsible and positive group in training – he says of the Chelsea players -. I am happy with the team, very balanced between defense and attack and made up of players who want to compete, who want to win. Chelsea will be a great club made up of great players, but even here you work with people: you have to understand them, get to know them, treat them with respect, communicate as clearly as possible and create those relationships that I do not see in the coming weeks and months. ‘time to cultivate “. The new owners have given him fourth place as a minimum goal, but Potter has other objectives for the moment: “I am thinking of the first game, at Salzburg – he says -. We have to compete, but there are no guarantees in the Champions League or in the Premier League. It’s about creating that relationship with the fans that is the basis of everything, understanding how we want to play football, creating a unique style, our style, one that the fans can be proud of. Success for us will be improving, trying to win ”.

JORGINHO APPROVES

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“This is a new challenge for Potter, but it is also for us.” It is Jorginho who tells how the Chelsea locker room has metabolized the sudden change on the bench, the passage from Tuchel to Potter after what remains the last game played by the Blues before the stop due to mourning for the death of the Queen. “Potter is an excellent coach – says the blue -: he has accepted a new challenge, but it is also new for us. He is a humble coach, with a great way of working: I am convinced that he will do well because he has great ideas and a group of players ready to listen to him and do their best to put those ideas into practice. We feel responsible for what happened to Tuchel, because we are a team and the responsibility for what happens belongs to everyone and not to an individual. Now we have to focus on our new challenge, on understanding what the new coach wants from us, what he asks of us on the pitch. We have to improve, do it as a team ”. It’s been 7 days since Chelsea played their last game, six since the property launched the revolution. It seems like an eternity. And Potter’s first time feels like that new beginning that Tuchel didn’t have.