At the end of a lengthy and characteristically measured justification of his tenure at Chelsea, Graham Potter, who has taken six points out of the last 24, picked up a drinks can and gesticulated at it in frustration. ‘It’s not like I’m some robot, just speaking to this can all the time,’ he exclaimed.
And it was as though in the last four months Chelsea had finally got to him: Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte, Thomas Tuchel doubtless sympathisers.
It also felt good that at last he was being himself rather than the inscrutable version of what he thinks a top-club manager ought to be.