Graham Potter sack talk levels up as Carragher tears into Boehly over major Chelsea transfer failure

Talk that Graham Potter may face the sack at Chelsea will likely be cranked up with the pressure more on his shoulders than ever before following their crazy £490m spending under Todd Boehly.

The Blues co-owner, alongside business partner Behdad Eghbali, have spent heavily at Stamford Bridge since taking charge last summer. Indeed, 17 new players have arrived in total, to a spend of around half a billion pounds.

But since their time in charge, results have not matched on the pitch, with Chelsea struggling to keep pace with the rest of the top six.

Friday night saw another frustrating evening as Chelsea were held to a 0-0 draw with Fulham. That keeps the Blues ninth in the table, some nine points adrift of the Champions League places.

And while not too late to embark on a good run, if their current form continues they will miss out on the European football. Indeed, the last time Chelsea did not play in Europe was in the 1996/97 season.

As such, Carragher knows the knives will be sharpened for Potter as a result.

However, the Sky Sports pundit is adamant that all the blame should not fall on Potter’s shoulders. And he thinks that by adding so many new signings, it only makes it harder for Chelsea to find their best side.

January’s window saw the likes of Mykhaylo Mudryk, Malo Gusto, Benoit Badiashile and Enzo Fernandez all sign for sizeable fees. And the latter of those cost an eye-watering £106.8m British record fee.

And ultimately, that could make life extremely difficult for Potter.

Carragher feels pressure is growing for Graham Potter

Discussing the issues, Carragher told Sky Sports: “I think it makes it tougher. I think the reason you bring in Graham Potter is because he builds a club that’s his history in management and that’s why they’ve brought him in. But it feels like what they’ve done in the transfer market is the opposite of that.

“There’s no right or wrong way of doing things, we’ve seen Chelsea in the past under Abramovich bringing lots of players in, changing managers all the time, but I don’t think that bodes well for Potter in the future in terms of the amount of money they’ve sent and players they’ve brought in. Because that’s pressure.

“The start of next season, with that kind of outlay – and they’ll go again in the summer – you’ve got to win the league or go close and that ramps up the pressure for the manager.”

Carragher also fears for the Blues boss with the constant stream of new signings making it hard to get his ideas across.

“The philosophy might have to be to build again. He’ll be trying to get his methods across to a completely different group of players and now even more players that have come in.

“It’s interesting because with every Chelsea manager, there’s been that question of who’s really in charge here of bringing the players in. He’s been quite vocal in press conferences before games that he’s a coach, and he’s thinking about tomorrow’s training.

Carragher claims Chelsea squad still has a massive issue

“From the press conferences, he’s a really level-headed character. He speaks about being not too high or not too low and he said he wasn’t too nervous on deadline day getting the Fernandez deal over the line, because he was thinking about training, that was someone else’s job.

“But they’ve got the recruitment team in there, who at Brighton were bringing players in for the future, and the players Chelsea are bringing are young. But when you get to this level and the figures we’re talking about it’s about the here and now.”

And despite their lavish recruitment, Carragher feels Boehly has failed to address the major glaring issue in Chelsea’s face.

And the pundit feels a lack of goalscoring threat could come back to bite them hard.

Friday’s match saw Mykhaylo starting in a front three with Hakim Ziyech, Mason Mount and Kai Havertz. But a frustrating evening, including plenty of changes, failed to see the breakthrough made.

And with Ziyech almost joining PSG on deadline day, Carragher has questioned their lack of a natural goalscorer.

“You go back to how much they’ve spent, £600m, and that will keep getting mentioned. But the thing that leaves you scratching your head a little bit is they haven’t bought a striker.

“They spent £500m, £600m without really buying a striker. And I know they’ve got [Christopher] Nkunku coming next season but there’s nothing really there right now.

“It’s looking like [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang’s not in the Champions League squad either as well. So it does feel really glaring, that one big position for them on the pitch.”