What will happen to Graham Potter if Chelsea loses their £40 million Champions League match vs RB Salzburg
It might have been simpler to welcome Graham Potter to life at Chelsea. His first game has surpassed earlier demonstrations of style, vision, or performance in importance. Although it’s not a must-win game, the fact that AC Milan will play twice more following this one means that he will be anxious to secure three points.
The outcome of Chelsea’s match against RB Salzburg might have an adverse effect on the remainder of the season, unlike in the league, where the new manager has yet to watch his squad play in a competitive match.
Chelsea is in trouble after a shocking loss to Dinamo Zagreb, the weakest team in the group, and it’s up to him to turn things around.
As a manager with fourteen years of experience at differing and progressing levels of football, he has already shown the ‘risks’ of moving jobs, and as he put it in his first press conference, “If you walk across the road outside the stadium, there is a risk. That is what life is; nobody knows what is going to happen in the future.
“I left England when I was 30 years old, and I went to a club that had sacked the manager every year for the previous five years. It was the fourth tier of Swedish football, and I left a secure job, my wife’s business, for an opportunity.
“I’ve taken careful steps with my career – I haven’t just jumped at the first opportunity. I’ve always tried to understand what was involved and whether it was the right time for me to take the next challenge, but I think that is what life is.
“It’s about going outside of your comfort zone, taking responsibility, believing there is more to us that sits here now. I don’t see it as a risk in a negative way, but everything is a bit unknown, and that is the beauty of life.”
However, There will be more pressure on Potter, regardless of what he says, purely down to the expectance of a Chelsea response against Salzburg, a tough team to face, certainly no pushovers. This isn’t something that one of his former players expects to impact his tenure at Stamford Bridge, though.
Dan Burn, who joined Brighton one season before Potter came to the club, would play 81 times under the manager on the south coast and has revealed his temperament after matches. “He was a manager that never seemed to get too hyped up when we won and never too down after the game,” Burn said, speaking to Football Daily BBC podcast.
“I’ve had managers before that if it didn’t go well, they’d be kicking off afterwards, but Graham would just say a few words and then when he went back through the game, we would have a meeting when we went back in on the Monday or Tuesday, and we would go through it.
“That helped him because, in the heat of the moment, he can probably say things that he’ll regret, and the lads appreciated it because, for every point he made, there was video evidence to back it up as well.”
Potter’s use of meetings has been a common theme for players that have spoken about his management, and complex situations are often relayed simply by the boss with a degree in Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. That’s why his calm demeanour comes across well, but he does have a hot streak in him that Chelsea could see if the circumstances in his first ever Champions League match turn against him.
“At an odd time [he would shout], the odd time, because it’s just natural. Football is an emotional sport, so if we’ve conceded last minute or something hadn’t gone our way, or we’d dropped our standards, then he had it in him to do that, but for the large part, he was very level-headed, and it was quite analytical.”
Outside of having a strong run in the competition that Chelsea won less than 18 months ago, there is also financial pressure to win in the tournament. Not only do individual matches bring a £2.4m winnings prize, but earning a place in the knockout stages is worth £8.2m.
To make it all the way to the final would bring an additional £33m, and winning it, though the pride and achievement is the main payment, is worth more than £3m too. In total, Chelsea could earn over £40m from the tournament, and getting through the group stages is the first big part of that.
For Potter, his first match will be anything but an easy introduction, but that sets the bar for the rest of his reign, things are rarely easy at Chelsea.