New Chelsea boss Graham Potter faces a mountain of issues to solve as his Stamford Bridge tenure gets underway
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Updated 14/09/2022 at 10:24 GMT
Where to start for Graham Potter? The new Chelsea boss admits the last 10 days have been a "whirlwind" as he swapped the South Coast for the intense glare of the Stamford Bridge hotseat. Potter's first match in charge will be against Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League on Wednesday, but beyond that he will need to mould a new team together, and fix issues all over the pitch.
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One clean sheet all season, a hastily-assembled squad and an owner set on shaking up English football. Welcome to Chelsea, Graham Potter.
The Blues' new boss seems well aware he has swapped the relative calm of Brighton for a West London maelstrom, but in his public utterances so far Potter has exuded a calm excitement as he begins to get to grips with the task ahead.
And it's some task, with Chelsea spluttering their way through the season so far and a series of potentially season-defining fixtures on the horizon. Already.
So what are the key things Potter must get right if he is to turn the Stamford Bridge ship around?
Gelling new signings
Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were among the big arrivals at Chelsea over the summer.
But there were five more besides as new Blues owner Todd Boehly made waves in his first transfer window, spending north of £250 million as he set about refreshing a squad that had stagnated during previous windows, not only following sanctions imposed on previous owner Roman Abramovich earlier this year, but also dating back to 2019 when FIFA imposed a transfer ban following irregularities concerning youth signings.
But was the surgery excessive?
Potter will be the man to prove whether that has been the case or not, and he will need to answer numerous questions about the composition of his best XI.
A back four or a back five? Ben Chilwell or his ex-Brighton charge Cucurella down the left? Aubameyang to lead his frontline or will Armando Broja get his chance?
Previous managerial incumbent Thomas Tuchel failed to find the right balance during the first few games of the 2022/23 campaign, and there was also an alarming lack of continuity in the midfield area which left the team unable to impose any control on games, most obviously seen during the abject 3-0 Premier League defeat at Leeds.
With the likes of Mateo Kovacic, N'Golo Kante, Jorginho, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Conor Gallagher and Mason Mount all at his disposal, Potter is not short on engine-room options.
Like he did at Brighton, he will need to construct the team in the right way to let the individual talent shine through.
Finding goals
The aforementioned Aubameyang/Broja selection issue is a key one, but there is a wider issue at Chelsea with goalscoring.
The last two league seasons have seen their top scorers be Jorginho with a paltry seven in 2020/21, and Mount last term with 11.
Indeed no Chelsea player has broken 20 Premier League goals since Diego Costa in 2016/17, with a succession of expensive forwards - think Timo Werner and Romelu Lukaku - coming and going without ever getting close to their best.
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Clearly there is a personnel issue here, and given the repeated failings, there may be a structural one too, with the club's general preference for attacking via the flanks resulting in, or perhaps the result of, not having someone who can provide a threat from central areas.
Chelsea have arguably never replaced arch creator/scorer Eden Hazard since he left for Real Madrid in 2019, with the likes of Christian Pulisic, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Hakim Ziyech all failing to deliver the numbers needed from them.
Can Raheem Sterling be the difference? He has three goals and one assist already, and if the team can be set up around him, then his returns in recent seasons at Manchester City show that he can be prolific.
The Kante problem
When your generally accepted best player is out of contract in nine months, it's bound to unsettle the dynamic of any squad.
That's why sorting out Kante's future early could be the most pressing item on Potter's to-do list.
Kante reportedly turned down Chelsea's latest offer of a new deal in August, holding out for a longer contract than the '2+1 year' option that was offered.
The Frenchman has a point, with Kalidou Koulibaly - at 31, the same age as Kante - given a four-year deal when he arrived at the club from Napoli in the summer.
The issue seems to centre around Kante's questionable fitness, with a series of injuries keeping the ex-Leicester man off the grass.
Indeed he has missed five of seven games so far this term, with the two games he did play resulting in a win and a draw, the latter arguably Chelsea's best display of 2022/23 to date against Tottenham.
The team just looks better with him in it, with his all-round qualities giving more offensive-minded players like Kovacic and Gallagher the opportunity to commit more in attack, knowing they have a shield behind them.
With Kante free to explore a move away in January, and teams at home and abroad already sniffing around, Chelsea and Potter need to either sell the Frenchman in the winter window and re-invest the money, or tie him down as soon as possible.
The stasis and uncertainty from doing neither could continue to derail their campaign.
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