Gary Neville has delivered his verdict on the future of Chelsea manager Graham Potter, who is facing a crucial few weeks to keep his job at Stamford Bridge. The Premier League defeat against Southampton extended the Blues run without a win to five games.
A shock defeat to managerless Southampton, who remain bottom of the league despite beating Chelsea, came just three days after a Champions League loss to Borussia Dortmund. Despite spending £323million in the January transfer window in the hopes of solving their attacking woes, the Blues have scored just once in their last 450 minutes of football in all competitions.
Pressure is now mounting for Potter with the London derby against Tottenham this weekend now more important than ever. But despite the Blues' shocking form under Potter, Gary Neville does not expect Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali to make a rash decision on Potter's future.
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Speaking on The Gary Neville Podcast, he said: "He's under massive pressure, Graham Potter, you can see it in his face. I watched the highlights of that [game against Southampton] and the chances they missed in the second half and the boos at the end of the game felt a little ominous.
"I think the Chelsea owners will want to do the right thing. They sacked a manager very early in the season in Thomas Tuchel. They've then brought in Graham Potter and recruitment assistants in alongside him so they've really invested heavily in Graham and his team.
"But they have got to hold their nerve if they want to see it through. I suspect that nerve is being tested especially when you've spent that level of money and they're losing games at home against bottom of the league."
Neville has already made his thoughts clear on the transfer decisions made at Chelsea by Boehly following his takeover of the club in May 2021. Roughly half a billion pounds has been spent in that time by Chelsea, with Neville of the belief the methods of the ownership directly contrast with how Potter likes building his teams which is causing him a significant problem.
"He's a fantastic coach, Graham Potter, but you just get the feeling watching him he's a measured man," Neville added. "He's a good coach, you get the idea that he would like to build a pattern of play with a group of players on a consistent basis and he's got 33 of them staring at him down the barrel saying 'play me'.
"These aren't junior players, they are senior internationals and I can't imagine what it must be like to have 33 players. He's got 22 players that are not going to play. They're not all fit at the moment but if they were how do you even get them all into a training session? A good training session you'd have 16-20 players, if you've got 25 players, five of them are training with the reserves or on their own. Honestly, that's not right.
"They needed to unload players to take the pressure off Graham Potter from having to handle all those players who are expecting to play every single week. I think it's been mismanaged and I've used the word chaotic and I think it has been that in the first six months of the [Todd] Boehly ownership. I won't change my mind on that.
"They've invested heavily, they've put their money where their mouth is and they're saying all the right things but at this moment in time it won't be a successful project when you've got 33 players there looking at the manager especially when you've got a manager who really wants to build a measured project, it feels a little bit conflicting."
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