So if the game starts to become ‘Hawaii football’ - up and down - then it can become a challenge for us. “You are playing one of the best teams in the Premier League in terms of high intensity. “But we want to try to score the second goal. “The game got stretched and I wanted us to attack but as soon as you miss the opportunity then maybe you need to be stable,” Potter said. Sterling, he said, was returning from injury. He argued that Noni Madueke, his penultimate substitute, on for his £100 million man Enzo Fernandez, was an attacking change. The Chelsea manager himself did not see it that way.

Mateo Kovacic, back from injury, was replaced with Carney Chukwuemeka and Noni Madueke came on for Enzo Fernandez, Whatever the intention it was notable that Chelsea did fall back. Potter had taken off Joao Felix and Raheem Sterling on 68 minutes, with Conor Gallagher and Dennis Zakaria on in their place. “Frightened” was how Javi Gracia described the Chelsea mood in those closing stages, before correcting himself when he saw the amused reaction in the press room. A counterattack that petered out in the teeth of a general mood of cautiousness in the 75th minute was met with exasperated cries of encouragement from home fans to attack nonetheless. They were reshaped by Potter’s substitutions which were defensive to say the least and invited the pressure that ensued. That game could be one of the classic European nights at 21st century Chelsea or it could be one of the worse.Įither way it will require the kind of ambition that Chelsea showed in the first half and then relinquished as the clock ran down. Their win over RB Leipzig on Friday night was their tenth in a row in all competitions. Come Tuesday night, back at Stamford Bridge, there will be Champions League round of 16 second leg against a Borussia Dortmund side one goal up from the first leg and riding the crest of a wave.

There is some breathing space at last, or at least 72 hours. As the pressure built in the closing stages there were sections of the home support at Stamford Bridge who were dismayed by the cautiousness of a Chelsea team that settled into five at the back. Yet it did not look like a template for his future Chelsea, if indeed there is to be a future. This was Potter’s first win in six Premier League games, and only his third in the 16 that have come since his appointment. It ended with a header from goalkeeper Ilan Meslier, up for a corner, that was caught easily by his counterpart Kepa Arrizabalaga but might otherwise have produced the kind of calamitous ending to which Potter has so far been accustomed. A run of three straight Chelsea defeats was ended by the narrow margin - a second half header from Wesley Fofana that prefaced a Leeds United siege in the closing stages. At last a shaft of sunlight for Chelsea’s embattled manager Graham Potter and a win that might just save his managerial skin for now.

Wimbledon scores 2019