vox888 Graham Potter has revealed what happened during his time at Chelsea, reflecting on the pressures that built up leading up to his sacking. vox888

Potter, 49, was sacked in March 2023 after a 2-0 home defeat to Aston Villa less than seven months into his time in charge at Stamford Bridge. It was his 11th defeat in 31 games since replacing Thomas Tuchel on September 8. ( vox888 )

At the time of his departure, Chelsea were 11th in the Premier League and 12 points behind the Champions League places.

The board have given the green light for around £550m worth of new player spending in both the summer and winter transfer window, leaving Potter with an oversized squad and little time to make new signings.

Potter highlights the brutal nature of the World Cup mid-season and the injuries to key players

“It’s almost like a perfect storm,” Potter said.

“It’s 14 games in six weeks before the World Cup. It’s like you’re in a washing machine. That’s what we said in the team because the games are still going on and we don’t have time to prepare.”

“We lost Reece (James) and Wesley (Fofana) to injury, I think we had the most players at the World Cup and then shortly after that we lost Raheem (Sterling) and Christian Pulisic.”

“If you spend £300m on players from outside the Premier League, from countries that have a mid-season break, the reality is you can’t imagine they’ll play and everything will be fine.”

“But of course if you spend £300m, the pressure on the team increases and the pressure on the coach increases as well.”

“People were like, ‘Come on, you’ve spent all that money.’ I thought if I spent it on Harry Kane and Declan Rice, that would be fair enough, but at the time it was a decision.”

“We tried to support it as best we could, but it gave us a challenge after January with a lot of players and then they couldn’t go anywhere.”