Ray Parlour slams Chelsea boss Graham Potter for praising Arsenal
Speaking on Talksport Radio (h/t Metro), former Arsenal midfielder Ray Parlour has slammed Chelsea manager Graham Potter for praising the Gunners after Sunday’s game.
Chelsea lost to the Gunners by 1-0 at Stamford Bridge at the weekend. Speaking to the media after the match, Potter was complimentary of Arsenal, classed them as the ‘better team’ and ended by claiming that Mikel Arteta’s men deserved the win.
Anyone who watched that game would probably agree with what the Blues boss said. The home side were diabolical in everything they did on the pitch. They were outplayed in every facet of the game.
However, Parlour thinks that is too much respect here as he believes the Chelsea-Arsenal rivalry does not need Potter praising the Gunners. Here’s what he exactly said (h/t Metro):
“I listened to the interview after, all he did was talk about Arsenal and how good they are. He can’t do that. You’re at Chelsea. This is Arsenal vs Chelsea. Chelsea have won multiple trophies over the years, the standards are so high.
“That’s the problem you’ve got. You can’t be coming out and praising the other team. They didn’t lay a glove on Arsenal.”
As much as the ego side of things needs to take over to keep the flame alive of this London rivalry, Potter is just trying to be honest about his team’s situation and he does not see any harm in praising the opposition.
At this moment, Chelsea are miles behind Arsenal, chiefly because Arteta has been in charge of the Gunners for almost three years now, while Potter arrived at Stamford Bridge in September of this year.
So, while there are bragging rights whenever Chelsea and Arsenal play, the gap between both teams is big enough to not warrant false representations of what happened on the pitch.
Maybe the right way for the Blues to go back to the top would be to accept that the teams currently above them are better and then learn to adapt and find new ways to beat them in games and years to come.
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The World Cup is perhaps the right time for Potter to reassess his first two months in charge of Chelsea, try and see what has been working for the team and devise new methods to add goals to this team. They have been struggling to do the latter with consistency for some time now.