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Chelsea owners maintain ‘unwavering’ support for Graham Potter — reports

Just don’t call it a vote of confidence

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Graham Potter did not taste defeat until his tenth match in charge of Chelsea, but since that most bitter Brighton pill, he’s tasted little else, and where once was a five-match winning run, now stands a three-match losing streak.

Neither of those are big numbers of course, so it’s probably unwise to make any definitive assessments. Overall, Potter has won seven, drawn three, and lost four, which is far from great, but isn’t completely tragic either. But Potter himself had admitted that the team’s performances weren’t exactly warranting his early success, and that’s doubly true now that the results have turned less favorable, to say the least.

Normally, what would happen now is that the manager would flounder for a few more games, maybe get a vote of confidence depending on his legend status, and then get sacked in a tunnel or moon-doored on a plane. Over the past twenty years, we’ve grown accustomed to this sequence of events to the point where it would become an expectation.

Times are different now however, or so they say, and thus Potter’s not in danger of getting the sack anytime soon. According to club-sourced reports form the likes of The Athletic and CBS Sports, the Chelsea hierarchy maintain “unwavering” support for the head coach and the “long-term project”, and that “full backing” has been reiterated to him personally as well. And this “should not be mistaken” for the kiss of death that is a vote of confidence.

The Athletic’s report does add that a top-four finish remains the goal set for this season even if Potter has been “hired for future seasons, not just this one”, so the owners’ resolve in sticking with their 60-million-dollar-man, the Non-Stone-Cold Steve Austin, could yet be tested, but for now, we’re all just hoping that the six-week break can give our tired legs, minds, emotions a fresh start.

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