There is plenty of speculation around about Graham Potter’s future, and despite all the positive noises coming from the ownership about backing their man to the end, it looks clear to us that this month will be definitive.
We play 4 games, and 4 losses would mean Potter is gone, no matter what – we’re sure of that. But if you were a member of a casino syndicate looking to speculate on exactly how that might come about, where might you land?
All of the games seem winnable to a degree -but that just makes the pressure to win them all the more intense.
Potter seems like he’s right on the brink, but then again it’s felt like that for a while. If you’d have asked us at the start of the year whether he would be able to survive the run he’s on now, we would have said no – so clearly these are exceptional circumstances.
We reckon that he wouldn’t be sacked even with a home defeat to Leeds this weekend – although the atmosphere at Stamford Bridge would become poisonous to a degree we can’t imagine.
After that is the second leg against Borussia Dortmund. The first game in the tie just summed up our last couple of months – a host of chances, no goals scored, and a defeat after conceding a dreadful goal to the opposition.
This game feels like the key one – because a win here turns around the pain of the first leg and gives us something to play for again.
After that is an away trip to Leicester – a team who are hard to make sense of this year, but have plenty of talent and more than enough ability to beat us if we play anything like we have since the World Cup.
On the other hand, if we have a little momentum going into that game from turning around the Dortmund tie, they’re the perfect team without much to play for who could easily be knocked over by a buoyant Blues team.
After that, perhaps the hardest game of all to call, as we take on Everton before the international break. The Toffees are pretty terrible and are lurking around the relegation zone – but have Sean Dyche in place as manager. If anyone has the capability to get his team to scrap out a win against us and be Potter’s executioner, it’s Dyche.
Let’s hope we don’t give him the chance to earn that right. Pick up a few wins before that and we could see a confident Chelsea side sweep aside a rotten outfit.
Well, we can dream.
