By his own admission, Graham Potter has been in the proverbial washing machine since taking charge at Chelsea at the beginning of September. Games have come at a rapid pace. Injuries to key players have been frequent. And results have been largely underwhelming.
"It's been a unique situation," Potter admitted after this weekend's 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace. "As we went along, players kept dropping away due to injury and we were struggling for stability and any real confidence that stability brings. You learn a lot from that even though it is not nice as I’ve said. We’ve had to deal with what we’ve had to deal with. It’s pretty unprecedented I must say."
As Chelsea approach the halfway point of their Premier League campaign, they sit 10th in the table. It is a position few anticipated in the summer and one that will not be acceptable to supporters come May. Improvement is required, both in terms of performance and points.
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Circumstance has played a part as to why Chelsea have struggled, especially since the beginning of November. Potter has been deprived of Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Ben Chilwell and N'Golo Kante. Edouard Mendy has also spent a period on the sidelines. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Raheem Sterling, Christian Pulisic and Armando Broja too.
Yet one aspect that has often been overlooked is the lack of opportunity to work on the Cobham training pitches Potter has had with his squad since replacing Tuchel at the beginning of September. There were a few days before his first game in charge against FC Salzburg and another handful after. The schedule that followed was relentless.
Between October 1 and November 12, Chelsea played 13 matches in all competitions. A pattern was set: play, recover, prepare, repeat. It was quite a departure from what Potter had become accustomed to at Brighton and Hove Albion, who infrequently played more than one game a week.
Some felt the World Cup break would give Potter that invaluable coaching time. Not quite. Chelsea had 12 first-team players at the tournament in Qatar and the likes of Chilwell, Loftus-Cheek and Kante were undertaking rehabilitation work to recover from injury. The first-team squad was again threadbare.
Chelsea's campaign resumed on December 27 at home to Bournemouth. Six matches have since been played; no midweek has been left free. However, prior to this Saturday's game against Liverpool, Potter has five uninterrupted days with his squad. And following the trip to Anfield, the Blues won't be in action again until February 3.
Potter has needed this quality time to work with his squad – and potentially welcome back key figures such as James, Fofana and Chilwell. It's a period that will enable Chelsea to reset and attack the second half of the campaign. If they are unable to do so, Potter will come under further pressure.
"I think we have some time across the next period of games – and time is always valuable for us," Potter said on Sunday. "We’ll use it as best we can. I understand timescales people work to are short these days and people have short memories, but we have to keep working and try to improve. That’s what we’ll do.”
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