It was not the first problem Chelsea have had with a coach this season. Indeed, given the way Thomas Tuchel’s reign imploded, it was not even the first with a Borussia Dortmund coach. But when a large vehicle containing the visitors struggled to get into Stamford Bridge, at least it was not an issue with a malfunctioning coach that was an indictment of Graham Potter.
Instead, an evening that had the potential to render him a dead man walking, to borrow a phrase often used about one of his beleaguered predecessors, Claudio Ranieri, instead produced the best result of his troubled tenure as Chelsea manager. Which, admittedly, is not saying much. The shortlist of candidates was just that: until Dortmund were defeated, it only contained home-and-away victories over AC Milan. A knockout game with a manager under pressure, factoring in a first-leg deficit, rendered this the finest.
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