🧠 What will Graham Potter's Chelsea look like? | OneFootball

The key to new Chelsea boss Graham Potter is the fact the approach from his team is the same no matter what their shape looks like.

There’s an emphasis on possession, being calm in their own third but rapid and ravenous in the final third. When they lose the ball they press instantly, looking to deny counter-attacks, before getting bodies behind the ball again.

Looking at how adaptable he has been with the shape of his teams in previous jobs, how are Chelsea likely to set up under their new boss?

A back four?

We know how flexible Potter’s Brighton can be when it comes to their shape and that was the same during his time in Sweden too but with one big difference: Östersunds were often favourites.

In Europe the Englishman adopted a back three but domestically he tended to use a back four, mostly with a diamond or a 4-3-3 formation. The principles we have gotten used to remained but the shape was different.

He has employed a diamond at Brighton too, so it shouldn’t be out of the question at Chelsea even if they don’t have two strikers, though a narrow 4-3-3 with the width coming from the wing-backs feels more likely.

At Swansea a 4-2-3-1 was used more often and you can easily see how the above shape, with two of Jorginho, Kanté, Kovačić, Loftus-Cheek in midfield could merge into that.

A battle is likely to emerge at left-back when everyone is fit, with Potter’s former Brighton mainstay Marc Cucurella battling with Ben Chilwell, and there could be a chance for either Kai Havertz or Armando Broja up front if Potter wants a more all-round striker than Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

The Brighton approach

If we look at Brighton this season and the success that has taken them to fourth in the table with an approach that started late last season, we see an aggressive back three and wingers playing as wing-backs. Could Christian Pulisic be given a reprieve as a Leandro Trossard or Solly March type wide option?

Alternatively Chilwell could play wide, with Cucurella playing as an attack-minded third centre-half as he did at times last season.

Jorginho does not always look like the most dynamic player and could be the one to miss out in midfield if Potter goes this way.

And the frontline is again intriguing, with the new Chelsea boss changing between two players behind a hard-working striker and two attack-minded midfielders or wide players drifting as a pair of false nines.

Brighton did that with Alexis Mac Allister and Trossard at times last season but you can easily picture Raheem Sterling being used that way alongside Havertz.

Whatever Potter plans to do first, it’s worth keeping two things in mind.

Firstly, it will take some time for his ideas to be fully understood by his new players. And secondly, he is so willing to change that we’re unlikely to see Chelsea do just one thing consistently.