Graham Potter: Chelsea Come Through on Their Promise to Their Fans

Chelsea Football Club have secured the services of the favourable Graham Potter from Brighton. He will join the new-look Blues on a five-year deal that is reportedly worth over £50m.

It’s confirmed: The new era for Chelsea and the Todd Boehly-led Consortium is well and truly underway as Stamford Bridge welcomes the new boss in town, Graham Potter. Following the sacking of Thomas Tuchel after their disappointing Champions League opener where they lost 1-0, the club owners vowed to get busy with finding a new boss right away.

They made a promise to the players and the fans that by the weekend they will name a manager and they delivered with what is said to be, their first-choice candidate. Boehly and his partners were said to be impressed with Potter since they took over at the West London club and paying a £16m compensation was done with a smile.

With all this in play, it took the club’s hierarchy about 24 hours to confirm Tuchel’s successor, giving the impression that Tuchel’s days were long numbered and his sacking was a matter of when and not if.

"Graham Potter has been confirmed as Chelsea’s manager on a five-year contract worth more than £50m as the club’s ownership put their faith in a rising star with fresh ideas to succeed Thomas Tuchel, who was sacked on Wednesday.Potter joins from Brighton after compensation – understood to be about £16m – was paid to release him. He arrived at Chelsea’s training ground on Thursday afternoon to sign his contract after a smooth series of negotiations. (via: theguardian.com)"

Why Did Chelsea part ways with Thomas Tuchel?

In a previous post, The Top Flight discusses why the owners thought Tuchel was not the man for the job. It was reported that the relationship between Tuchel and his decision-makers started to take strain.

The players plus the pressure on their depleting relationship plus the three back-to-back losses on the road were enough to act. Tuchel was only interested in coaching his players and changing the results on the pitch with the tools at his disposal. Sadly, this was not the vision Boehly and co. shared with him, hence the change to Potter.

You can read the full article here: Was There Enough Reason Behind the Sacking of Thomas Tuchel?

Why Graham Potter?

It was the next step in his career that had to be taken. With Brighton & Hove Albion you felt there were more highs to come for him and the south coast side but the fight and the end goal was the same as before: try to reach the top 10 with an outside chance of European Football.

After helping the Seagulls secure the highest league finish in their top-flight history while claiming a few of the big teams’ scalps along the way, many big clubs started monitoring him. A big admirer of the Englishman was Chelsea’s rivals, Arsenal.

It was probably the right time to make the step up. He goes from a top-10 fight to a fight for the biggest honours up for grabs in Europe. Right now, the former Brighton man is fighting on all fronts and has a big arsenal to work with and at his disposal.

How Does Brighton Recover?

It is a sad turn of events for all at the American Express Community Stadium, especially the fans. The Seagulls have been on a massive inverted climb since Graham Potter joined them and were joining a marvellous start to the season with four wins, one draw, and one loss from their opening games.

Thanks to their dominant displays over the course of the first six matchdays in the Premier League, they now sit in fourth place, above the likes of Manchester United (5th), Chelsea (6th), and Liverpool (7th).