Chelsea and Graham Potter: A £50m tale of everything that is wrong about Premier League football

So when Graham Potter arrived at Stamford Bridge on the sad day – September 8 when the Queen left us – could anyone have predicted he’d be out of a job by the time King Charles was crowned?

But gone he is. Despite taking the Blues to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Potter departs after a dismal run of form in the top flight, but with a reported huge pay off despite being in the job for less than seven months. Very much a case of marry in haste, repent at leisure?

There’s a school of thought that Potter’s predecessor at the Bridge, Thomas Tuchel, was a dead man walking whether he’d lost to Zagreb or not on September 6.

In fact cynics might even suggest that the Blues were talking to Potter before the dear old Queen was pictured with Boris and Ms Truss on September 5.

But however much talking Todd Boehly and co might have or not have done prior to Potter’s appointment, one thing is for sure, they didn’t do their homework.

Don’t get me wrong Albion were going well at that time, Potter’s ‘stock’ was high but bearing in mind Chelsea were perceivably catapulting him into the big league, did they really do due diligence when it came to the new manager?

I’ve made no secret of the fact I was never a Potter acolyte at the Albion, clearly he got at that time the best ever Albion squad into their best ever league position, but there were a number of red flags even at that point.

He remains the only manager in EPL history to fail to beat the eventual three relegated teams over the six league fixtures in season 20/21. With the Albion in apparent freefall in February 2020, there’s a strong argument that the Covid lockdown saved the Albion from relegation.

He had two runs of games – no wins in 11 (8 draws) pre-Christmas and then six straight defeats in January and February of season 21/22. Two runs of form that have previously seen many a football manager pick up his P45.

Another school of thought that for all his excellent possession stats the Albion lacked a final product. Yet even with those statistics, Chelsea were prepared to fork out over £20million in compensation to take Potter and his backroom staff to West London, personally paying him £12million a year in the process.

Cliché alert, there are no winners in all of this... au contrare. Brighton banked their £20million. They also got over £60million for the second best left back in the club (and don’t kid yourself that the Cucurella wasn’t connected to all this) and also ended up with a managerial upgrade in Roberto De Zerbi.

Chelsea thought – like the other ‘big clubs’ thought before and will continue to – they could wave their cheque book, click their fingers and everyone would fall into line. It’s everything that is currently wrong about the ‘Beautiful Game’. I think they call it poetic justice.