Graham Potter once recalled losing a game in Sweden to a team called Morön BK. In the immediate aftermath, as he reviewed the match in his head and surveyed the passing landscape from the window, it would have been understandable were Potter having second and third thoughts about his Swedish expedition with remote Ostersunds.
“Eight-hour bus home, a million trees and four people,” Potter said drily.
That was in the beginning, over a decade ago. Potter could refer to himself then as “an English muppet” who felt out of his depth.
Self-deprecation is part of Potter’s appeal and of course he is far from being a puppet or clown. His messages — at Ostersunds, Swansea and Brighton — have shown clarity of thought and delivery. It is what Chelsea have seen in the 47-year-old.
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But things can get lost in translation, we know that. The second “o” in Moron, for instance, has the Swedish equivalent of an umlaut, indicating an island, so it’s a bit different from how we read the word.
The concept of stupidity — or literal thoughtlessness, to put it another way — is an interesting route into Graham Potter because it is the opposite of who he was then and what he wanted to become.
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Potter is good because he thinks; he thinks because he has intellectual curiosity. It was the reason he was in northern Sweden. That he stayed seven years says something else about his perseverance and adaptability, even if there were clearly times when he was as isolated as an island and not just geographically.
Potter had previous in the island department. As a player he was good enough to be given a Birmingham City debut at 17. Some appear to be sniffy about Potter’s playing career — and he does not talk it up himself — but he made England’s under-21s and played in the Premier League. That’s a serious footballer.
Yet what tends to attract greater attention is his end, at 30, at Macclesfield Town. Lots of us would loved to have failed as well as Potter did.
Before Macclesfield he had been at Boston United briefly and there he overlapped with Graeme Jones. Jones is now at Newcastle United with Eddie Howe, having previously worked with Roberto Martinez at Swansea, Everton and Belgium. When Jones told the Swedish newspaper Expressen about Potter the player, Jones said: “He was a technical full-back who, to be honest, was misunderstood in England. It was all about blood, guts, fight and tackles there. It wasn’t his game. I think a lot of his work comes from there. We wanted a deeper and more intelligent view of football.”
The change in English football culture as personified by Pep Guardiola or Marcelo Bielsa, chimed with the developing worldview of the likes of Potter and Jones. Another change, sometimes underappreciated, has been the improvement in pitches, which facilitates passing and certainty. When Potter began playing in 1992, pitches were still old-school, as were attitudes and approaches.
By the time Potter reached Sweden in 2011 much had changed and it has evolved since. He is an example of a thoroughly modern manager, one who mentioned prioritising “human beings” in his first in-house Chelsea interview. It’s different, it’s deeper and he has shown it works.
If in everyday life and sometimes at governmental level, stupidity and recklessness are in vogue in England; in football it is the opposite. Here thinking and attention to detail is increasingly the norm. It would be an exaggeration to say English football as an entire industry has matured, but at certain levels it has. Chelsea now have a manager who has done an MSc in “Leadership: Personal & Professional Development”.
Emotional intelligence is a phrase we’ve heard a lot about Potter and we best not get tired of it. It matters, but then so does his observation and tactical coaching on the training pitch, his Monday to Friday workplace.
This is the upside for Potter, something he understands. In Sweden he spoke of doing his coaching qualifications in England and how for many ex-pros it was a box-ticking exercise. People left with the required certificates, but Potter’s analysis, given to Expressen, was that the course was “just ‘stuff’. Nothing. An environment with ‘things’ and people who wanted a diploma. The learning never takes place.”
Truly learning as opposed to gaining a qualification — this, once again, is someone who thinks beyond the superficial.
“How do we develop responsibility, self-awareness and empathy?” Potter asked. “That’s the most important thing in a football team, that environment.” Not many managers or fans would define the most important thing in football this way.
But what if at first it doesn’t work? When will Potter be judged? By what criteria will he be assessed? He talked this week about not seeing his decision to leave Brighton for Chelsea “as a risk in a negative way”, but it is.
The training environment has been Potter’s friend — Swansea’s Nathan Dyer talked of how much the players “loved” Potter’s work “because it was total football.” There was an overall aim that reached further than the next result.
We admire this and we admire environments that enable such behaviour and development. A question is whether Chelsea will or can provide one.
Chelsea’s new American owner Todd Boehly has American opinions on English soccer; but it is a positive sign that he considers Potter the right manager for this moment. The appointment helps offset the hasty in-season removal of Thomas Tuchel who, when it came to silverware and repointing Chelsea, was exceptional.
Tuchel, however, is a more abrasive character than Potter, tetchy and impulsive as well as excellent. Such a personality may not have sat well managerially with Boehly, who will have liked the sound of Potter as well as the vision.
But what if at first it doesn’t work? When will Potter be judged? By what criteria will he be assessed? He talked this week about not seeing his decision to leave Brighton for Chelsea “as a risk in a negative way”, but it is.
As he knows from experience, from learning, the environment is crucial. Can modern Chelsea, a far more demanding place and fan base, allow Potter the time to impose himself and his methods on a squad with egos to match their salaries? A five-year contract at least suggests Boehly believes in long-termism.
Potter has had his first 90 minutes — a 1-1 draw in a Champions League match Chelsea started at odds of 1/4. The next, against Liverpool tomorrow, has been postponed, and with internationals it will be October 1st at Crystal Palace before we see Potter on the touchline again.
A team that has lost at Leeds and Southampton are also in Champions League jeopardy. It’s hardly an eight-hour bus trip back from Moron BK, but it is just as well Potter is a thinker. At Chelsea he has plenty to think about.
