‘He just won’t waver’: what Chelsea can expect from Graham Potter

His former players recall how the manager cut his teeth at Östersund and Swansea, before rising to further prominence

INCOMING: Graham Potter.

“Which way do you want to die?” That was the question Graham Potter posed his players in the pre-match meeting before his Swansea side tackled Manchester City in the FA Cup three years ago. “It was: ‘They can either beat you with you laying on your back, tickling your belly, or they can beat you if you give it a right good go,” says Matt Grimes, a fixture under Potter during his sole season in charge of Swansea and now captain of the club.

“Because if you sit in a 10-man block, they’ll break you down and beat you anyway, so you might as well make a fist of it while you’re doing it. That’s how he sold it, we were all on the same page and in the end we ran them really close.”