Marc Cucurella is excited by what Chelsea can produce under Graham Potter and expects the Blues to have made some big strides when the Premier League season resumes after Christmas. The Spanish defender, who arrived in a deal worth in excess of £60million in the summer, believes the volume of games in October and November posed a problem for his head coach, but that the World Cup break has provided a perfect opportunity.
Potter replaced Thomas Tuchel in September and was quickly met with two postponed matches and an international break before 13 matches in six weeks. Inevitably, injuries awaited and saw the 47-year-old have to deal without the likes of Wesley Fofana, Reece James, Ben Chilwell and N'Golo Kante.
While Chelsea have had a large proportion of their squad at the World Cup, the likes of Cucurella, alongside Trevoh Chalobah, Jorginho, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Lewis Hall and Armando Broja have been able to spend time at Cobham and Abu Dhabi working under their head coach. Although the latter is now not expected to play again this season.
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That period has seen defeat to Aston Villa, with the Blues' squad supplemented by a cohort of Chelsea's development squad but a number of players with World Cup commitments are set to return on Wednesday and another friendly has been arranged for the next week. Cucurella already believes the first two weeks of training have provided some benefit.
He told Sunsport: “After he arrived, it was difficult training because there are a lot of games. These weeks gave us time for training to prepare for the second half of the season. It is good training together because you understand the players and your team-mates’ movements.
“All the changes are difficult. We have a lot of players to come with a new manager, not a lot of training time because we play a lot of games. We need to know his ideas and then play together — these weeks have been very good for us.”
The 24-year-old, who spent 2021/22 with Potter at Brighton, is hopeful that Chelsea's stars can bring the coach's attacking ideas to the fore. Cucurella is confident that results will come in the second half of the season after the Blues lost four of their last five games before the break, having previously gone nine matches unbeaten in the aftermath of Potter's arrival.
"We have big players to do his ideas," the defender added. "I was really happy at Brighton with him and now he has come here and I think it is good for me and the rest of the team. He is a good coach because his idea of football is attacking.
“All of it is a process. The first season with Graham in Brighton the results were not good, they stayed down in the table. They continued with the same ideas, working, working and working. Then, last season and this season they played really good with the same ideas.
“We need to work and understand his ideas and the results will arrive. It is difficult because it is a new coach with different ideas and it is difficult to change without the time to train. This part of the season we have time, we meet more and know the ideas of the coach. This second part of the season, I am excited for.”
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