Graham Potter vows to learn after 'looking like a fool' against Brighton
By Tom Gott
Chelsea manager Graham Potter has conceded that he may 'look like a fool' after his team were thumped 4-1 by his former employers Brighton on Saturday.
Three first-half goals against a Chelsea side which featured both Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic as wing-backs proved impossible to overturn for Chelsea, who were tactically outplayed in the first 45 and unable to claw their way back into things after the interval.
After the game, Potter admitted he is struggling to find his best lineup due to numerous injuries to key players, but confessed that he got this one wrong.
"As I said to the players, if you lose you have to look at it and if you’ve made a mistake or got things wrong, you have to analyse it and do better," he said. "That is part of our job, part of the process, and if we’ve got that wrong I have to take responsibility and do better. I’d rather look at it from that perspective.
"You have to congratulate Brighton as well, they did what they do well. We had some opportunities ourselves and the scoreline makes it feel a little bit worse that it was in terms of us having opportunities and touches in the box that were similar to them. They have a couple of own goals, we have a couple of chances. In the end, it felt probably a little bit too open for us and that is my responsibility.”
On Pulisic and Sterling specifically, Potter added: “The responsibility for those two wasn’t to defend against their wing-backs, but I understand that whenever you do something and it doesn’t work you look a bit of a fool. That is how it is. I have to accept that, deal with that, do better, and I’ll learn. That’s the process.
"You need to find a way to win and perform. We’ve had a lot of games in October and an incredible schedule. So for different reasons, we’ve lost key players in terms of Reece [James], [Kalidou] Koulibaly, [Wesley] Fofana and [N’Golo] Kante. So there is a constant challenge in how to set up. We tried today and again, it can be tactical or it can be the intensity and the opponent do what they do better. I have to analyse the game and look at how I can improve.”
With Potter's unbeaten run as Chelsea boss now over, the focus turns to the midweek dead-rubber against Dinamo Zagreb. Chelsea have already secured top spot in their Champions League group and have nothing to play for anymore.