The Premier League season is into its ninth month and Graham Potter is yet to figure out his best Chelsea XI, says Paul Merson, making it difficult for the Blues to find any rhythm or consistency despite edging out Leeds at the weekend.
Chelsea picked up just their second win in 12 games in all competitions in 2023, and their first in seven matches, at Stamford Bridge on Saturday – but the performance was less than convincing, according to Merse.
“It’s a start,” he commented, when reflecting on Chelsea’s narrow triumph, but continued to say that Potter’s most revealing test will arrive on Tuesday when Borussia Dortmund come to town in the Champions League – the London side are 1-0 down after losing the first leg in Germany.
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Image: Wesley Fofana scored the winning goal for Chelsea against Leeds
‘Potter doesn’t know his team’ | Chelsea still ‘big players’ in CL
It’s a start for Chelsea [to beat Leeds] and you’ve got to start somewhere. You’re not going to go from a disappointing run and suddenly start winning six or seven. You’ve got a team, in Leeds, fighting for their lives and full of energy so to get a result is positive. It’s only a start though. The big game is Tuesday night – it’s as simple as that. It comes down to Tuesday.
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Chelsea train ahead of their Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund as they look to turn around a 1-0 deficit at Stamford Bridge
Relief will cary them into Tuesday [against Dortmund]. Chelsea are big players in the Champions League – admittedly they aren’t as big without Thiago Silva. They are still a team that if they can click, they become dangerous animals. If Chelsea go and beat Dortmund a lot of teams in the league won’t want to face Chelsea. But Silva is now injured – the two players Chelsea cannot afford to miss are Silva and Reece James.
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Just because you put all of your best players on the pitch that doesn’t magically make a team. They’ve got to gel – that isn’t easy. People think you can put a lorry load of internationals on the football pitch and it’s going to go bang, wallop, crash. It’s a machine and you’ve got to get going from the back to the front.
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Highlights from Chelsea’s match against Leeds in the Premier League
When he [Potter] picked the team on Saturday that made it 70-odd changes [to the starting XI] already. We’re in March and he still doesn’t know his best team. That is so, so worrying. No Chelsea fan could name the team for Tuesday against Dortmund. It’s impossible. There’s no fluidity – it’s stop-start. You need partnerships all over the pitch and Chelsea don’t have that. That is my worry, Potter still doesn’t know his team. I’m not sure Chelsea are capable of scoring two goals against a team, at the moment. That’s also a worry.
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He doesn’t have to keep everyone happy. There are too many players at Chelsea. I don’t care who the manager is, there are too many players. Potter hasn’t become a bad manager overnight. He’d fallen behind the eight ball straight away and that is part of the problem. If you bring in another manager at Chelsea you’re bringing in top drawer – someone who has been and done it at the top level. But they will come in and say ‘I don’t want that player, I don’t want this player’. Then we’re starting all over again.
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Chelsea owner Todd Boehly didn’t have much to say after Chelsea narrowly beat Leeds but Graham Potter admits his team need to keep fighting
You get Zinedine Zidane in, who is world-renowned, a legend, he comes in and says ‘this player doesn’t get into my team’. That’s another year to get going because everything needs swapping again. A lot of these players they have brought in, other managers won’t have them.
At Tottenham, Chelsea didn’t look like scoring a goal in a month of Sundays and an £80m player is sitting on the bench. You cannot tell me that’s his player. If you pay £80m for Mykhailo Mudryk and you’ve gone after that player, you’re playing him every single minute. You wouldn’t be making yourself look like a fool by saying I want him for £80m and then two weeks later deciding he can’t get in the team. It just tells you he isn’t Potter’s player. That’s why the manager is still there, that’s how I see it.
If Roman Abramovich was still there, it doesn’t take Einstein to work out, Graham Potter would have been a distant memory.
Lesser teams than this Chelsea side have won CL
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Paul Merson says Chelsea’s current performances are the worst he has seen in 25 years and believes the club should get former captain John Terry in to help fix their form
I think Potter needs to get John Terry involved. You’ve got a Chelsea legend there who knows it defensively. If you’ve got Terry on your bench, it softens it. He’s played there, the fans love him – it’s just clever things like that. Sometimes the pressure gets to managers and they miss simple things. I would also move to three at the back without Silva – get Ben Chilwell and James higher up the pitch.
It’ll be a long night on Tuesday. I think it’ll go to extra-time and Chelsea win – they have a better squad if they utilise it. If it goes to extra-time then Chelsea have a chance. It will be hard for Potter if Tuesday goes badly because this is all they have left. This is massive. It’s a huge football match for Chelsea. They’ve got players who will fancy it in the Champions League – I’ve seen lesser teams win the Champions League, believe me.
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