Todd Boehly and the Clearlake consortium arrived at Chelsea promising a new era of stability. This, Boehly promised, would be a contrast with the Roman Abramovich era of hirings and firings. He has been in charge for a year, during which time Chelsea has spent $700 million in transfer fees and has, for the first time in its history, sacked two managers in a season.
Graham Potter was appointed manager when Thomas Tuchel was surprisingly dismissed in September, a week after the transfer window closed. Potter is polite and likable and has worked his way up slowly from the ninth tier of English football, via the Ghana women’s team and semipro football in Sweden. Whatever the circumstances of his accession, there would have been questions over whether he was cut out for the very highest level of the game—and the truth is that, because the challenges at each tier of the financial structure are so different, nobody really knows whether a manager can thrive at any given level until they have tried it.
But those circumstances were extremely difficult. Six major summer signings, having been brought in to work under a Champions League winner—and, remember, Tuchel had been given unusual control over signings because of the absence of a sporting director following the initial Boehly purge—were left wondering how they fit in to the new man’s vision.
