Chelsea picked up just their second win in 12 games in 2023 against Leeds on Saturday; they face the second leg of their Champions League tie against Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday; Merse: “So worrying that Graham Potter still doesn’t know best Chelsea XI”
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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.