Here’s a fun statistic shared over the weekend. Erik ten Haag is the ninth longest serving manager in the Premier League. He has been at work for eight months.
The intense pressure from the true Super League that is the Premier League claimed two more victims yesterday when chelsea Put Graham Potter in the box marked “To Timbuktu” and then Leicester City agree to part ways with Brendan Rodgers, ie ask him to go to Kick Rock and he agrees that he needs some rock-booting Must leave for
Happy Trails, Graham Potter
Potter has been on the Chelsea hot seat since September, when He replaced Thomas TuchelIn 2006, he strangely restrained himself after collecting the Champions League and finishing in the top four for the club, as well as appearing in three domestic cup finals in his not-so-two seasons. Potter wasn’t able to shake off the complete mess that Chelsea had become under Todd Bohli, although that does not absolve him of all blame. For Saturday’s defeat at home to Aston Villa, he fielded a 3–5–2 set-up, except “3” was only a natural central defender and “2” had no real striker, in fact With both Joao Felix and Kai Havertz being used as attacking midfielders or directly at #10.
g/o media can get commission
Potter has been hampered by Chelsea’s injury list since he has featured, with Havertz being the only regular available for every match. And Potter certainly hasn’t been helped by the Pollock-painting method of Chelsea’s transfer policy. It started in the summer, when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was bought because Tuchel wanted him, and then Tuchel was fired minutes later. Bohli has spent some $757 million on new players since arriving, and yet he doesn’t have a true holding midfielder (N’Golo Kante’s patchy health and increasing mileage don’t really solve the problem entirely. ), a dependable keeper, or a true striker. They have brought in Raheem Sterling, Mykhaylo Mudrik and Felix, all of whom do their best work on the left side of the attack. It is also the place where Christian Pulisic lives. Enzo Fernandez, Dennis Zakaria and Conor Gallagher were all added to the midfield and none of them solve the problem of what to do when Kante is not around or how to replace Jorginho, who he let go at Arsenal. What exactly is Bohli’s plan here?
Chelsea doesn’t have a backbone physically and spiritually, that’s where the blame for Potter comes from. They’ve looked completely toothless for most of their run, and as they went 1-0 down at Villa, they’ve never really looked like they’ll claw anything back. There are some interesting patterns they weave in the build-up with the ball, but once they get to the final third it seems everyone’s out of control. That was the story for Potter’s Brighton teams that they would play some really beautiful stuff but couldn’t make it nearly enough. Roberto de Zerbi seems to have solved a problem caused by Potter.
It’s hard to say that Chelsea don’t have much left on the table, considering they are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and A date with Real Madrid. Running between Madrid and then the winner of Man City-Munich to reach a final is about as tough as any team could ask for, not that it’s impossible. This becomes difficult with either an interim manager or a permanent manager who has been on the job for a few days.
Where does Chelsea go from here?
The shooting of the league season is over. He is in 11th now. But clearly Bohli and the rest of the executives need this incredibly expensive squad to make something of Jump Street next season, otherwise all that money spent could draw some interest from Financial Fair Play investigators. But do prime managerial candidates like Julian Nagelsmann or Luis Enrique want to step into a club that is trying to run in five different directions at once?
As for Leicester, they ran through the usual Rodgers cycle of burning incredibly brightly for their first few seasons and then not only fizzling out but collapsing like a Bart Simpson-owned factory. They are currently ranked 19th, although in the nine-team backyard brawl that is the current relegation battle, they are only five points from 12th. Leicester are in a strange position as a club. They are too large to be a continued launch-pad for talent and use the money gained through sales to re-invest in the next crop of players – As Brighton does for example. But those players aren’t good enough to be included in the Glitterati, as Rodgers’ back-to-back 5th-place finishes showed. The window to sell guys like James Madison or Harvey Barnes or Yuri Tielemans for big money seems to have passed, but they are all at the bottom of their peak years.
The termination of managers in the Premier League is only a testament to the rewards at hand, no matter what level a club finds itself in. For Tottenham or Chelsea, it is about trying to recapture the money of the Champions League. Ditto for Leicester, although they are now gazing at the trapdoor as if it had a tell-tale heart. Leicester is not a club that can afford to pay Premier League wages while in the Championship.
What about the rest of the league?
It’s a similar story for all the other eight clubs in the relegation battle, which is why all but West Ham and Nottingham Forest (Southampton have done so twice) have changed managers. And Forest spent over $200 million on new players this season. For example, last season Leicester made around $150 million in TV money from the league’s various TV deals. Right now, Sky Sports in England pays the EFL, which runs the bottom three divisions in England, $175 million. overall For the TV rights of all those leagues. You can see the problem. And don’t get that cheap ticket and everything else that gets deflated upon relegation.
The urgency is overwhelming. While most clubs will have some players on the relegation clause and their wages will be reduced if the club should go down, a 30 or 40 per cent cut in the wage bill does not compensate for the rest of the loss of income that arises from this. Premier League status.
Clubs don’t feel like they have time to get together for “a project” without feeling like they’ll be passed over by another club acting like a Vegas coke binge. Patience can get you to hell. There are only four Champions League places for the seven “big” clubs. Well-run machines like Brighton, Brentford, and perhaps Aston Villa are now waiting to pounce on what’s left under Unai Emery. Everyone is spending to keep their heads above relegation water, and that includes the teams that get promoted. It’s sprints on the field and in the boardroom.
Give the clubs a taste of the good land and they want more and more. They will need it to survive. Which would see managers running around like this has become the norm. You either hit the highest gears immediately, or you won’t have time to catch up.
For more of Sam’s barely coherent footie thoughts, follow him on Twitter @felsgate,