For Todd Boehly, it appears that the more cooks there are, the better the broth. Not only did his £250million spending spree bring in eight players, there were two returning loanees to add to the squad. That change was needed after losing key senior defenders and an overhaul throughout the team needed. In the boardroom there were just as many changes.
Streamlining the club has been a goal of Boehly and his co-owners since arriving and now they are getting closer to bringing in a senior director, a big step could soon be made. football.london understands that RB Leipzig technical director Christopher Vivell will be the man to take up the spot, but moves at a senior level won't end there.
As well as new physios and a head of recruitment - which football.london expects to be Joe Shields from Southampton - there are still plans to bring in more advisors and a possible sporting director as well. The previous model, which was effectively between Marina Granovskaia and Petr Cech, is being modernised with Boehly hopeful of having an expert in footballing decisions in place before the World Cup.
This role is most closely matched by Vivell, but a sporting director, more a transfer planner, could also be on the list to join the group of new recruits with Michael Edwards and Luis Campos still possibilities for advisory roles. In this instance it appears that Boehly would like a mixture of people in the sporting/technical department instead of just one voice - though this is something that may have put off RB Salzburg's Christoph Freund.
Nothing is being rushed in this process though and candidates are still being discussed. Careful planning for such a key role at the club, but still with a desire allow the appropriate person time to prepare for working in what could be a busy January transfer window.
One of the prospective names had been Norwich City's Stuart Webber. A man who, despite the limited budget with the Canaries, helped push the club to multiple promotions and has been open about his role in the past. In 2017 he told My Football Writer: "It allows the head-coach to coach. The most important thing for him is to prepare the team, to make the players better and the team better. A manager can get lost in less important stuff – if we’re signing a player, the head-coach shouldn’t be taking time away from coaching the team to deal with an agent.
"It’s also healthy to have people who can challenge the head-coach. He has the final say, but not the only say. I think managers have got the sack by being put in a position of making every decision, and making too many mistakes because they don’t have anyone to support them."
The Guardian report that he is not under serious consideration at this stage though, despite also having seen Huddersfield promoted to the Premier League. On the face of it, not having an established top-flight record could be seen as somewhat of a turn-off for the wealthy ownership group, but ahead of that appears to be the desire to find the right 'people' instead.
This is the sort of deliberation that will suit Potter, certainly a people person, and even if Boehly wants to fill his kitchen with cooks, as long as they align in their thinking, Potter will be happy to work on the broth.
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