While Graham Potter settled in at Chelsea, most of his players were away on international duty but that didn’t stop the new head coach from bringing all the staff together for a team bonding session.
The 47-year-old, who arrived on a five-year contract at the start of September with five members of his backroom staff from Brighton, has now been at Chelsea for three weeks and managed two games since succeeding Thomas Tuchel.
His first match ended in a 1-1 draw against RB Salzburg in the Champions League, before winning 2-1 to Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon at Selhurst Park.
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"On a personal level, it's nice to get the first win under the belt,” reacted Potter.
“Really pleased for the players because the pattern has been starting well away from home and then conceding and not getting points. They kept going and it could've gone either way."
But during the break, the Chelsea head coach took staff go-karting and he revealed his reasons behind the idea.
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“In order for us to get to know people, to understand people a little bit better, we went to a local go-karting, had a staff meeting and then went go-karting, that was nice,” revealed Potter.
“(We got to) see the competitive ones and the ones that can't drive and the ones that can, especially when it started to rain and got a bit wet.
"We had some food afterwards, again just to meet people and speak to people outside of this work context which is important because the environment here is really, really important for how we want to go forward and the type of place we want to create here.
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"The more we get to know, the more we can understand people the better.”
Potter utilised the international break as much as he could to settle in, and it showed against Crystal Palace as they showed character to come from behind to score through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Conor Gallagher.
Prior to the game, he added: “It’s a fantastic place (Chelsea), first impressions are really positive.
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"You can see the history, what’s been achieved, it’s amazing.
“People have been very friendly, trying to get to know everybody, there’s loads of people, we’ve had some social activity to break some ice to get to know people in a different way. That’s been good, we’ve used the time well there.
"Really happy to be here.”
Topics: Chelsea, Premier League, Graham Potter, Football
Matthew Debono