Graham Potter's First 100 Days At Chelsea EXAMINED | Explained

Hello, Team FD and welcome back to Winners and Losers, where we normally break down the latest and greatest Premier League action. But it was, of course, Zachary Gelab, the FA Cup third round. So we're going to do the big one. We're going to break down City versus Chelsea. But before we get started, shout out to Sheffield Wednesday, to Blackpool, to Stevenage, all knocked out. Premier League opposition. And that is exactly what the competition is all about. So there are real winners on today's show. But of course, we have to talk about the standout fixture. And that was Chelsea getting absolutely pasted. Drafted you in, especially for this. Thank you. Thank you very much. They ruined your weekend and now we're going to ruin your Monday. So City clearly are winners, but Chelsea dumped out of the FA Cup third round for the first time since 1997-98. They were Abramovich and Tuchel Chance. So not a good day at the office for Potter. Zach, what players, the ones who aren't injured, that is, fell short then in this fixture? Yeah, it was it was a rough one, considering that actually just a few days ago, even though Chelsea had also played Man City and lost 1-0 at home. But it felt like, especially in that first half, Chelsea were matching them. And you kind of saw a little bit of possibly Potter ball, dare I say it. And then obviously a couple of days later, you go away to the Etihad and you lose by four goals. Humbled. Look, you mentioned the players. And I think a lot of the biggest talking point is about the players. I think a lot of them felt like they just didn't care. Like a lot of them kind of rolled over. Now, I don't quite believe in that. Like, I don't think that is something that really happens too often, especially when you're playing some of the youngsters that we were playing. Humphreys is 19 years old making his debut. Of course he cares. I think a lot of credit has to go to Man City and Riyad Mahrez, who had one of his fantastic games and caused Lewis Hall a lot of issues down that left flank as well. But where I do maybe struggle a little bit is where Koulibaly's performance was. I think this is a guy who Chelsea spent a significant amount of money, upwards of £30 million, for a guy who not was one for the future, like some of the other signings, but one for the present, one for the now. And yes, OK, he was signed under Thomas Tuchel, but he's a guy that can be used in a three at the back formation, a four at the back formation, and was Serie A's best defender for numerous years. And we're just not seeing that here. I mean, there have been times before we would watch him for Napoli against maybe Premier League opposition, and he did struggle. I specifically remember that Arsenal game in the Europa League where he did struggle. But we've also seen him play fantastically well in Europe and in Serie A as well. I think one of the things I really struggle with is that he was known for his passing in Serie A, and we're seeing none of that here in the Premier League. His long balls, whether it was his left foot or his right foot, we're seeing none of that for Chelsea so far. They feel like he's being super clumsy. The penalty he gives away is super clumsy. And when you've got, as I said, Humphries, who's 19 years old, making his debut next to you, he's the one that's coming out arguably better. Like there is a little bit of concern there. I thought Kai Havertz was again, maybe just kind of insignificant up top. I kind of struggle with giving criticism to Kai Havertz because he's playing in a position that's not his role. I think actually, since his time at Chelsea, he's never been playing in the role that kind of suits him. He's having to do a job, whether that's on the left flank or whether that's out front. And he's not in the mould of a striker. He's a second striker. And to be honest, there's not many teams that kind of play with that formation. And Chelsea definitely haven't since he's been at the club. And then I guess after that, there's Kovacic, who went from being a fantastic part of the game in the Premier League. Yeah, to being subbed off at half time. And when Chelsea happened to rely on a lone midfielder who was actually Kovacic back in 2018 when he was on loan, missing him was awful. But now Chelsea have to rely on a lone midfielder in Denis Zakaria, who barely played for the first few moments of his time at Chelsea. But now he looks like the best midfielder at the club. So, yeah, like as I said, I don't necessarily think all the blame is on the players. And I think, you know, I think sometimes there's partly to do with the tactics or whatever. But it felt like, it did feel like it could have been better considering what we saw a couple of days ago. Well, he just said he's struggling to stick the boot in when it comes to Kuyvert. So allow me to take over, because I did have a real problem with his performance in the first half and that of Kovacic, who, like I just said, thought was a standout player in the first 45 against Man City in the league. But Kuyvert, zero shots, zero chances created, zero touches inside the penalty area. Going back to what you said, won't hold that against him too much because, of course, they weren't seeing it as a team, Chelsea, an awful lot of the ball in those areas. But dispossessed five times, which is a match high. Only 12 accurate passes. That's the second fewest on the pitch. Only two passes into the final third. So fine, I'm not going to be too critical of you not having a bunch of shots, not having touches inside the box. But when you're dropping back and looking to link up play, maybe to bring wider players into the fray like Ziyech or whoever it may be, Mason Mount in this case, you need to be putting up better link up numbers than that. And he also offered very little in the way of defending from the front. Zero tackles made. City had 58% of the ball. So plenty of opportunity to get their deep lying midfielders. Zero aerial duels won. One out of four ground duels won. One penalty conceded. All of this amounts to a pretty tragic 45 minutes, doesn't it? And Kovacic in many ways, more disappointed in him because he's playing in central midfield where the ball was an awful lot. And like I said, brilliant just a matter of days ago, but only eight accurate passes in this game. The joint lowest on the pitch. 13 touches, only four of them in the opposition half. And it's not like he was busy mopping up and sacrificing some foreplay for that. Zero interceptions, zero blocks, zero clearances, one tackle and dispossessed twice. So, yeah, I think those performances need flagging. And if people are going to criticise Potter, maybe have a look at some of those first. And I know they can be sort of as a result of a misguided system, etc. But I don't think that was the case here. But we're going to get on to bigger picture stuff in just a second. Maybe let's touch upon Jorginho and Ziyech because they followed Havertz and Kovacic off the pitch on 63 minutes. Of course, the former duo hooked at half time. What did you make of their performances? I mean, not really that noticeable. I mean, Chelsea were definitely better in the second half. Again, I actually think this City side played better in this game than they did in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge. Obviously, the first half, Pep had done a bit of a madness with his team, with Rodri and Co, who was actually fantastic in this game. Rodri was amazing. Jorginho wasn't fantastic. I mean, the whole reason you play a Jorginho is because you want to dominate the ball. You want him passing consistently. You want him hitting over 90 passes a game or such. And the second half, he completed just 18. I mean, compared to Silva, who got 54, and Rodri, who got 49. It's nowhere near. And when you're asking, essentially, in this kind of game, Jorginho to do the defensive work, that's not really his game. He got dispossessed twice. He made one tackle. It's not good reading. And then you get onto Ziyech, who I really struggle sometimes with Ziyech because you have the World Cup period where he was... I didn't actually think he was as amazing as people made him out to be. He was very good. But then he comes back to this Chelsea side, and it's just a guy who hasn't found his position, who doesn't look like he has the confidence. Even in the league, in the league game, there were moments of bright parts. But even then, you kind of feel like he doesn't really know where he's meant to... where he is in this team. He's on the peripheries, isn't he, in every game. Is he a starter or is he the guy on the bench and so on and so forth? But he's another one who came on that second half, one pass into the final third, one touch inside the penalty area. He had 0.01 expected assist, which is not good reading. Look, I think there's a little bit of the fact that Chelsea were bad and City were really, really good, which kind of amplifies it. But yeah, I mean, those two, not necessarily the best. Yeah, well, I'll offer you a silver lining in the fact that your second half performance was improved, wasn't it, when Potter made those changes. Still didn't really create anything of note. I think it was 0xG in the first half, 0.1 in the second, although did manage to outshoot City, had three chances to City's two. Limited City very well from open play, actually. I think they only had an extra 0.07 in the second half. Obviously conceded that dumb penalty, which really compounds things. But yeah, I just thought, touching on some overall themes, you just really struggled to progress the ball down the middle and the heat map very emblematic of that. Let's have that on screen right now. And I did want to ask you, because I have some thoughts myself. Yeah. How Potter should now approach the next three games, which are against Fulham, Palace and Liverpool? Should he line up with that 4-3-3 again? Or do you think they were slightly better in that 4-2-3-1 shape against City in the fixture prior? Yeah, I think the 4-2-3-1 is probably the way to go. I think the two being Zakaria and Kovacic is good. They both actually complement each other really well. Zakaria is a guy who, post World Cup, has really come out of his shell and you see him dominate that area. It's a physical presence, something that Chelsea haven't had for a long time, considering that the midfield has been a Jorginho and a Kovacic. And obviously, when Kante is fit, he's a presence when he's at his best. I think it's interesting, because I even thought yesterday in that game, there were moments, and I specifically remember this one, where you kind of saw what Potter wants. Potter wants to play out the back, continuously. There were several, a lot of the time, that Chelsea would get that ball from the goalkeeper to the centre-backs and get pressed by City and have a mistake. But every now and again, there was a chance where they got it out to Lewis Hall who played it to Kovacic, back into a centre-back, who then made the perfect ball into the next midfielder, straight through. The one that I'm thinking of is in the first half, and I think the ball just gets away from Mason Mount on the counter. But it would have started such a good play. And I think that's where you're starting to see slight things. Again, I thought you saw it a lot more in the Premier League game as well, a couple of days ago. I would keep going with a 4-2-3-1. I think that's where you maybe see a little bit more defensive solidity with Chelsea, which at the moment, look, Chelsea are not known for scoring lots of goals in the past couple of seasons. Even when Tuchel was there, Chelsea weren't scoring lots of goals and they weren't creating a lot of chances. But they were defensively sound. And if you can sort out the defence first, then you can focus on the attack. Because Chelsea are conceding some quite sloppy opportunities. I think back to the game in the Premier League, if Kepa's just a little bit more aware and more proactive rather than reactive, it might be a 0-0. And you come away thinking, oh, fantastic, and what a great defensive performance. And so, yeah, look, I think there's a chance it might get worse than where it is now, before it gets better. But it's something that Chelsea have to stick with. They need to put faith in Potter. They need to trust him. And no matter how bad the social media side of things get, the media side of things get, look, I think this season at the moment is kind of considered a write-off already. But it has to be... But that's fine as long as you then go, OK, let's try and progress. And that's through playing youngsters. We saw that yesterday by playing Humphreys, by giving minutes to Amari Hutchinson, who maybe isn't quite there yet, but by giving minutes to Lewis Hall, who looks ready, by giving minutes to any of the others, like Chukwemeka as well, yeah. I think that's how you can at least... Fans can come away from those games thinking, look, OK, we're trying to progress. We're giving these minutes to youngsters who will hopefully next season or within a couple of months' time really start to see them kind of come out of their shell and have big impacts on games. So, yeah, that's kind of where I am on Chelsea at the moment. And obviously, we've got Thiago Silva coming back in. You're not going to come up against players like Rodri, who did dominate that space. You know, you really failed to, I feel like, again, similar to the league game, Kaya Verts got on the ball a few times in that space, had to turn back. The ball ended up with the centre-backs or the goalkeeper because City were just able to squeeze those areas too easily, yeah. And yet you do have press-resistant players. So the mind does boggle why those players can't take it on the half-turn and drive at the opposition. But maybe playing a 4-2-3-1 and having a more robust 10, like a Galaga or a Mount, in that space. Players who don't mind shooting as well from distance and trying something a little bit different might be more beneficial than Galaga being out wide on the right and not really being able to stitch together play on that flank. He put in five tackles, Conor Galaga, in that game, but they were all down the flank. They were all fairly deep into your half as well. So it's kind of like the damage had already been done by the time Man City got into those areas. But yeah, I thought Mount was pretty anonymous as well. But there were a couple of incredible performances. The youngsters did come to the fore. Lewis Hall in particular, four tackles in interceptions. That was a match-high number of interceptions. 95% pass accuracy, which the rest of the team did not replicate. Two out of three dribbles completed and won 50% of his ground duel. So it was competitive. And Kyle Walker, who was, I think, the pre-eminent physical presence in this game. Yeah, and Zakari came on at half-time. One shot, one tackle, two interceptions, 13 passes. So slightly better than those that came before. Yeah, that is our breakdown of Chelsea versus Manchester City in the FA Cup. How do you think Chelsea should line up moving forward? Let us know in the comments below. Subscribe to this video with notifications on. And we'll catch you in the next Winners and Losers, which should be live in a matter of hours. We're going to deliver you a Brucey bonus. See you then. Goodbye.