Graham Potter, the manager of Chelsea, compared losing his parents during the Covid epidemic to “fixing a plane in the air” as he discussed handling mental health in the Premier League.
Potter was just starting his career at Brighton when he signed with Chelsea in September.
He claimed he had to handle his role as a manager while juggling “strong and raw” emotions.
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“OK, am I getting upset, furious, disappointed, dissatisfied, or anything else because of this or because of this?”
When asked if there should be more discussion regarding the mental health of managers, he responded, “We play a sport where pressure is created.
“Whatever the situation, someone has to be under pressure, and it will happen one after the other, after the other, after the other.
“Then one is gone and it’s on to the next; a few weeks ago, it was Steven Gerrard, and then it’ll be someone else, and then somebody else.”
Four Premier League managers have already been fired this season, and as of Gerrard’s departure from Aston Villa earlier this month, the average tenure for a manager in the top division is currently two years and four days.
Taking against Brighton at 15:00 BST on Saturday, Potter, who took over as Thomas Tuchel’s successor at Stamford Bridge, feels it is useless to compare managers.
According to him, it’s bad for mental health when “[the media] always want to compare with the prior guy.”
“Let me be clear: It is tough in the culture we live in to feel sorry for a Premier League manager, but mental illness doesn’t really care about your social standing or financial status either.
It’s just something to be cautious of; it’s a struggle, and I believe we all need to keep that in mind.
“You must realise that as you perform your duties, there are circumstances outside your control that you must handle and manage.
Along the journey, you may occasionally have to endure suffering and pain, and clearly, the higher you are in the Premier League, the louder it is.
In Potter’s account of his experiences going to Sweden to manage Ostersunds FK from 2011 to 2018, he discusses how the difficulties of coaching may also affect the manager’s family.
“You sort of think, I have got to make this work,” he said. “When you move to Sweden in the north 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.
You put all of your effort into it, and who knows? Maybe it starts to become a little habit. It’s challenging, and if you want to succeed, you must put in a lot of effort. It takes a lot of effort.