During his time taking Östersund from deadbeat minnows to serious Europa League competitors, Graham Potter famously displayed a penchant for the theatre. His team performed Swan Lake and then there was the occasion when, in front of 1,600 punters, Potter opened a charity gala by belting out the Jämtland regional anthem in a local dialect. The underlying idea was a serious one: conquering stage fright in the traditional sense might nurture similar resilience for the football pitch.
With that experience Potter might seem overqualified for the lead role in a pantomime. But once all the jokes about Chelsea’s ownership-proof propensity to hire and fire have been exhausted one thing is clear: they are deadly serious about luring the Brighton manager to Stamford Bridge and continuing one of the most unusual trajectories of anyone in the industry. Potter took over at Östersund, who had initially hesitated about employing him, almost 12 years ago when they were an irrelevance in Sweden’s fourth tier, and his rise resembles the kind of fairytale his amateur dramatists might have enacted.
