New Chelsea coach Potter – plays attractive football but has never coached a top club

Chelsea have found a new coach after sacking Thomas Tuchel. The Englishman Graham Potter from Brighton. Fans who often follow the Premier League will be familiar with him, but even so, some of the information in this article might surprise you.

Beginnings in Sweden

His first ever engagement as a head coach in professional football was very unconventional. Unlike many English coaches who train exclusively in England, Graham Potter was not afraid to choose a different path.

At the beginning of 2011, he became the new coach of Östersund, who were only in the fourth league at the time! However, in 2015 he was already promoted to the top Swedish competition with the team. There, he presented himself with courageous football, even winning the Swedish Cup with the team in 2017, which secured the team’s participation in the preliminary rounds of the Europa League.

A pilgrimage through European cups and a win over Wenger

Even though Östersund had a chance to make a historic qualification to the European Cups, it was certainly no formality for them. However, Graham Potter did indeed earn his participation in the Europa League’s group stage with the small Swedish team. In qualifying he went through strong Galatasaray, Fola Esch and PAOK.

Östersund finished second in the Europa League group, which meant that they would continue in the European Cups in the spring. However, in the first knockout round, the team got a strong opponent in the form of a strong Arsenal side. Despite a shocking 2-1 win at the Emirates, Arsenal eventually managed to advance.

Unconventional coaching methods

Probably few people can imagine that footballers together with coaches would play in a theatrical game. However, this is what happened when Graham Potter was the coach at Östersund.

The Englishman’s main hope was to strengthen the relationship between the two. Probably no one knows concretely if it really helped anything, but if a small team like this managed to reach the knockout stages of the Europa League, it certainly won’t be a coincidence.

Offensive and modern style of football

Graham Potter is a fan of the 3-5-2 or 3-4-2-1 formation, and these are the formations most often used by Chelsea at the moment.

He always tries to be on the ball as much as possible in matches, he tries to play the same style, which is based on honesty and organization, whether his team is playing against weak or strong opponents.

The versatility of the players is also important to his system. He can change formation so often during the course of a match, and it is not uncommon in Potter’s system for a player to play wingback one game and striker the next.

Source: Chelsea FC