EXCLUSIVE: Joe Cole calls for patience from Chelsea fans towards Graham Potter

Chelsea legend Joe Cole has urged the club's supporters to stick by under-fire manager Graham Potter despite a tricky run of results.

Potter was hand-picked as the man to lead the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital era at Stamford Bridge and was brought in to replace Thomas Tuchel earlier this season, but underwhelming performances and poor results have seen a section of fans turn on their manager.

Indeed, after Chelsea's recent 1-0 defeat to bottom-side Southampton, a loud chorus of boos was directed at Potter, with many supporters already calling for the former Brighton boss to be given his marching orders.

So far, Chelsea's new owners have chosen to remain patient with Potter, who admitted to talking to the board in the aftermath of that latest Stamford Bridge defeat.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with 90min, Cole has pleaded with supporters to shelve the negativity and throw their support behind Potter in the coming weeks and months.

"I knew there'd be uncertainty," he told 90min. "I knew there'd be a level of performance below what Chelsea fans are used to, because you can't just change the whole structure of a football club. Everything's changed. And when there's massive change, there's massive opportunities. There's an opportunity to get back where they were.

"They've fallen well below Man City's standards. Arsenal are in a different stage of their development, so they're back up there and they could easily win the league. Manchester United, for all the messing about they've done over the last decade, they seem to be getting their act together, so Chelsea need to get their act together across the whole of the club.

In an exclusive interview with 90min, Joe Cole talks to Scott Saunders & Harry Symeou regarding all things Chelsea. They talk about Graham Potter's future, Mason Mount, the Blues' transfer policy and more.

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"It's a new era. It's frustrating for the fans. I can give you an opinion on whether I think what they're doing is right or wrong but you don't have the information. Only time will tell whether the Enzo Fernandez deal was a good deal, whether [Noni] Madueke was a good deal, whether bringing in all these players at once was a good deal. Are we going to lose some, like we lost [Mohamed] Salah or [Kevin] De Bruyne because there wasn't space for them?

"But this is where we are, and the method the new owners are using, it's just going to be time. We're going to have to look back in 18 months to say 'that worked' or 'it didn't work'. It's going to have to have time, and Chelsea fans are not used to that.

"Changing the mindset of the fans is difficult, because they've been attuned to 'win, win, win, lose, sack, win, win, win, lose, sack', and trophies continue to come. Chelsea are the most successful team over the last 20 years.

"I believe the best thing Chelsea fans can do is be patient and work with it. I think Chelsea fans are intelligent. There have been sections of every game, even the Southampton game to a certain degree, there were sections of it with little glimpses of things breaking through. I think there's going to be a big performance, a big upturn in results. Whether it happens this week, next week or two or three months, or the start of next season, I think it will come. There's too much quality there."

As well as contending with fan unrest, one of the issues behind the scenes for Potter is balancing a bloated squad that is overflowing with more talent than the rules allow.

Some of the January signings had to be left out of the Champions League squad, while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who only joined in the summer, had to be cut from the team to make space.

"Graham Potter has two hats he has to wear," Cole continued. "There's the 'Graham Potter has been employed by Chelsea Football Club to get results' hat, and he's also got himself. I think he's a very moral man and he'll have to wrestle with that.

"I think he's a manager for the modern world. To suggest he's not tough enough is such lazy journalism."

- Joe Cole on Graham Potter's critics

"The players signing, he knows that they probably deserve to play, but they've got to wait their turn. It's going to be tough. The fear for me is there will be players we lose from this project that go on to become world stars, like they have in the past. Graham Potter has got to navigate his way through this landscape and find seven or eight players he can rely on, and the only way he can find out which ones he can rely on is by playing them and rotating them.

"Thiago Silva isn't going to be around forever. You need him for the biggest games so you take him out the side. [Kalidou] Koulibaly, what can you do? [Wesley] Fofana, coming back from injury, he needs to be managed back into it. You can't just throw him in and play 90 minutes, 90 minutes, 90 minutes or he'll break down again.

"All of these things he's navigating, with all this uncertainty around him... if he can salvage something out of this season, it'll be the start.

"My advice to Chelsea fans would be if, come May, you're starting to see signs of a team emerging with rhythm, then that's a big ticked box and you need to put this season to bed and go again next year. That's the goal. It's difficult for Chelsea fans who are used to winning leagues, cups, Champions Leagues, but that's not where we are at the moment. We have to stick together."

With Potter's future far from certain, questions have been asked over what the boss needs to achieve to save this season.

Chelsea are out of both domestic cup competitions and well out of the Premier League title race, meaning their hopes of winning a trophy may rest on the Champions League - in which they must overturn a 1-0 deficit to Borussia Dortmund to advance past the last 16.

There may not be any silverware to add to the cabinet this summer, but for Cole, that isn't the aim of this season anyway.

"I believe [performances] will be enough," the former Blues midfielder explained. "The owners clearly have deep pockets, so one season out of Champions League football is not going to be disastrous for the club.

"Probably the reason why they've gone big on certain players in January, are Enzo or Mudryk [available in the summer]? They've probably hedged their bets on not getting the Champions League, getting these players through the door and getting ready for next season.

"It's just performances. You've got to look at performances when you're trying something so new. The club needs a big result.

"I think his man management's been spot on. He's given me food for thought with how he's reacted to certain situations. I think he's a manager for the modern world. To suggest he's not tough enough is such lazy journalism. To go the route he's gone to get to where he's got shows a resilience, a mental strength and a belief which he's going to need in abundance now.

"I think he's the right man for the job, and time will tell."

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