Graham Potter: Chelsea boss on mental health challenges faced by Premier League managers

Potter is unbeaten in five Premier League games with Chelsea

Graham Potter said losing his parents during the Covid-19 pandemic while managing Brighton in the Premier League was like “fixing a plane in the air” as he spoke about managing mental health.

The 47-year-old, who is now Chelsea manager, was in the early stages of his career at Brighton at the time.

He said he had to balance “powerful and raw” emotions with his job as manager.

“You’re going ‘OK, am I getting angry, disappointed or frustrated or whatever because of this or because of this?'”

And when asked if the mental health of managers needs to be spoken about more, he replied: “We are part of a sport where we create pressure.

“Somebody has to be under pressure, whatever it is and it will be one after the other, after the other, after the other.

“Then one’s gone and it is on to the next, it was Steven Gerrard a few weeks ago and then it will be somebody else and then somebody else.”

So far this season four Premier League managers have been sacked and as of Gerrard’s exit from Aston Villa earlier this month, the average tenure for a top-flight manager stands at two years and four days.

Potter, who replaced Thomas Tuchel at Stamford Bridge and takes his Chelsea side to Amex Stadium to take on Brighton at 15:00 BST on Saturday., says it is unhelpful to compare managers.

“[The media] want to compare with the previous guy so there is always that going on, which isn’t great for the mental health,” he said.

“It is difficult in the world that we are living in to feel sorry for a Premier League manager, get me right, but mental health doesn’t really discriminate with your status or how much money you earn either.

“It is just something to be aware of, it is a challenge and I think we all have to be mindful of that.

“You have to understand you do the job and there are things out of your control that you have to manage and deal with.

“Sometimes you have to suffer and you have to experience pain along the way and obviously the higher you are in the Premier League the more noise there is.”

Potter spent three years at Brighton

The challenges of coaching can also extend to the manager’s family, as Potter describes his experiences of moving to Sweden to manage Ostersunds FK from 2011-18.

“When you move to Sweden in the northern part of the country and it’s -20C outside in the winter and your wife has left everything that she knew, she is there with an 11-month-old kid, crying, because she misses her family and her job, then you sort of think, I have got to make this work,” he said.

“You throw yourself into it and maybe it becomes a bit of a habit, I don’t know. It’s difficult, you have to work hard if you want to achieve anything. You have to work hard.”