Potter confident of support from Chelsea owners despite slump

Graham Potter says he has the “full support” of Chelsea’s owners and players as he tries to turn around the club’s fortunes after a disappointing start to his tenure.

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Potter’s side have won just one of their past eight Premier League games, slipping to a 1-0 home defeat to Manchester City at Stamford Bridge on Thursday.

Speculation is growing over the future of the former Brighton boss, who took over at Chelsea in September, but he said he did not need validation from anybody outside the club.

“The owners are billionaires so they’re quite smart,” he said. “Smarter than me, that’s for sure. So they understand the challenges that we have and the direction we want to go in. I’ve been here four months and five, six weeks of that have been lost to international football.

“I think Pep (Guardiola) was (at Manchester City) a year before they’d won anything, and then obviously Mikel (Arteta) and Jurgen (Klopp) took a bit of time. But obviously it’s maybe different for me, for some reason. But I don’t put a timescale on it. I know the responsibility we have here.

“But also I know that I am capable, and I know the quality that I have and I have the full support of certainly the owners, the players and the staff here.”

Chelsea go head-to-head with City again on Sunday, this time at the Etihad in the FA Cup third round.

Injury list

Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic were both forced off the pitch on Thursday, adding to an injury nightmare Potter summarised by saying: “I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

The pair could be added to a growing list that includes N’Golo Kante, Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Mason Mount, Ben Chilwell, Armando Broja, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Edouard Mendy.

The Blues boss said it was unfair to judge him on a season disrupted by an injury crisis and the World Cup.

“I’m not sitting here (as) some egomaniac that has all the answers and gets everything right,” he said. “Of course that’s not the case. But at the same time, there’s some challenges that we face, there’s some margins in the Premier League that are difficult.

“We’ve had a massive transition – problems in terms of injuries don’t make it easy to be stable.”