Graham Potter says that he is not the ‘problem’ at Chelsea as the pressure mounts upon him following the club’s 1-0 loss to Southampton.
Chelsea have had a disastrous season to date, coming into this weekend’s fixtures, sitting 10th in the Premier League, 10 points adrift of the Champions League places.
However, their fortunes would not improve against a managerless Southampton this afternoon, James Ward Prowse’s free-kick just before the interval earning the relegation-threatened Saints a much-needed three points.
Chelsea were poor in the first half, and despite an improvement after the interval, they once again struggled in front of goal, the Blues having scored just one goal across their last five games and only six since the World Cup in all competitions.
There were boos at the full-time whistle as the pressure mounts on manager Graham Potter following a run of just two wins in their last 14, though when asked about the reaction, the Chelsea boss said he didn’t feel that he was the probem.
“After a 1-0 defeat at home, any criticism you get is understandable,” he said. “I think we’ve had a tough period and I think we’ve had lots of challenges in terms of integrating young players into the Premier League. While results don’t go your way it can be tough, that is how it is.
“I’m sure there will be people out there that think I’m the problem, absolutely. I don’t think they’re right but I’m not arrogant enough to say their opinion isn’t worth articulating.
“My job is to help the team, keep working through a team period, we’ve had to make some changes today and the truth is we took a step back in our performance in the first half. The response in the second half was good, but it wasn’t good enough.”
Despite the club’s struggles in front of goal, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was once again left out of the 20-man playing squad, with David Datro Fofana starting up front.
“I would say keep doing what he’s doing,” he said of Aubameyang. “We made the decision to give David the opportunity and we still had Kai [Havertz] and Raheem coming on and I think they impacted the game well. But obviously, when you don’t score and have created chances, I understand the question.”
Potter was delayed for his post-match media duties, and was asked if there was a dressing room inquiry, but insisted that there was no conspiracy.
“There is no conspiracy, I can’t give you that. There is a lot of media and I believe my colleague has done the media before me. I always come in and speak to you guys, understand the questions, and when we’ve lost 1-0 at home to Southampton, with the greatest respect to the, it is good enough because of the results we’ve had recently.
“The first half is as much my responsibility as anybody’s because the performance wasn’t good. I thought the second-half performance was better and we deserved to score. If we do that, the game changes around. But 1-0 isn’t good and we’re disappointed with that.”
