Graham Potter explains why he failed as Chelsea manager | OneFootball

Graham Potter believes his unsuccessful Chelsea reign was the result of 'the perfect storm'.

Shortly after Chelsea were acquired by BlueCo in the summer of 2022, they appointed Potter as their new head coach to replace the popular Thomas Tuchel.

However, Potter lasted only seven months and 31 matches in the job before being sacked in April 2023 with the Blues languishing in mid-table.

In Potter's short time at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea spent roughly £300m on seven young players during the winter transfer window.

Potter, speaking to the Telegraph in his first major interview since leaving the west Londoners, took accountability for what happened on the pitch, but insisted he was not helped by the board's approach to signing young players, the bloated squad it left him with and the congested fixture schedule he had to battle.

"I take responsibility for the results," he said. "I've never said I've ever been perfect and you live and you learn, and you are grateful for the opportunity and grateful for the experience you had there.

"But there's probably a context that has appeared. The easy solution is Chelsea aren't winning, so it must be the coach who has never worked at this level before, he's the problem. That might not be 100 per cent wrong, but it's not 100 per cent right.

Potter criticised how Chelsea spent their money in the January 2023 window / Clive Rose/GettyImages

"It was almost like the perfect storm. It was 14 matches in six weeks prior to the World Cup. It was like you were in the washing machine, that's what we said within the staff, because the games kept coming and we had no preparation time or anything.

"We lost Reece [James] and Wesley [Fofana] to injury. I think we had the most players at the World Cup and pretty quickly afterwards we lost Raheem [Sterling] and Christian Pulisic.

"Then the ownership decided to invest a lot of money in the squad, £300m in the January transfer window. Now, if you are spending £300m on players that are coming from outside the Premier League, from countries that are having a mid-season break, then the reality is you can't just imagine they are going to hit the ground running and everything's going to be fine.

"But, obviously, if you spend £300m, the pressure on the team goes up and the pressure on the coach goes up. And people go: 'Come on then, you've spent all this money'. I think if I'd have spent it on Harry Kane and Declan Rice, then fair enough, but at the time that was the decision.

"We tried to support it as best we could, but it left us with a challenge of a lot of players after January and then they can't go anywhere."

Potter is yet to take another job since exiting Chelsea, despite being linked with a number of top jobs both in the Premier League and abroad.