All good things come to an end and the unbeaten run for the new management team finished on Saturday at Brighton. It was a chastening afternoon that, to be fair, must have been highly entertaining for any neutrals in the crowd. There weren’t many of them as the atmosphere was ‘lively’ right from the moment the teams walked out the tunnel.

Sometimes you just have to take the hit and Graham Potter was quick to say he felt Brighton played well, even if there wasn’t a great deal of understanding coming the other way. First of all, that is absolutely fine, fans pay their money and have every right to their opinions, but it felt a bit on the harsh side to say the least!

Before the game I was on BBC TVs Football Focus and then BBC Radio saying I expected a little negativity towards GP but surely the Brighton fans would understand, with what he had done in his three years there, how good a team he had left and that it is the norm for managers to move onwards and upwards in their careers. I think I might have, as they say, failed to read the room.

The error was partly due to what I have watched and heard at Stamford Bridge over the years when former managers have turned up at the club. To be fair there have been quite a few of them, but in general the Blues fans have been incredibly respectful to those who went on to pastures new, and are usually keen to underline that they/we haven’t forgotten the good times, the hard work, most of the previous relationship and also that once you have played for Chelsea, you are generally always considered one of the family.

• Watch - 'Why am I doing this again?'

• Potter - 'I start with myself'

• The latest injury update

Now it isn’t every Chelsea fan of course who is so magnanimous, but the vast majority welcome the old guard back, usually warmly but yes sometimes grudgingly too, but it is respectful on the whole! It is hard when your former manager then goes on to take charge at rivals, such as Manchester United or yes, even Spurs, but even so a level of courtesy remains. There are understandable grumbles, but wide-scale booing, that isn’t generally our way. There have been the odd exceptions I grant you, but it isn’t the natural Chelsea position.

Ex-players returning are habitually given a lovely reception too. Look what happened when Diego Costa and Olivier Giroud turned up at the Bridge recently, trying to score against us. They were virtually ‘love bombed’ by the fans. I know from experience myself that you can even score against Chelsea at the Shed End and still be very kindly received.

This doesn’t make the treatment of Marc Cucurella by the Brighton fans wrong per se, I don’t abuse them for their feelings and reactions, it is just a different outlook. I just happen to like the attitude the Blues fans routinely show to our former employees. I hope as the years go by, new generations of Chelsea fans retain that outlook and that generosity as part of our culture. It’s classy.

Blips along the way

There aren’t too many ‘old boys’ ready to face us in tomorrow’s match against Dinamo Zagreb in what some have described as a dead rubber. I am convinced that is not how our players and management will be thinking of it. Yes, we are through to the knockout stages and there will be a bunch of changes, but quite a few starting berths will be decided not on who is looking best, but on who most needs the 90 minutes. It will be important to every one of those starters to do well as they know the boss is big on giving chances to those who play well. Kepa has been the best example of showing that good form equals game time under this regime.

Maybe more importantly it is huge that Chelsea get back on the winning habit again. That one defeat in 10 is undoubtedly very good form, but that is the difference when you are coaching one of the very biggest clubs, the level of scrutiny is of a totally different order. A bad day at the office is glossed over at Brighton and a host of other clubs, A bad day at the office at Chelsea is poured over and debated until the next big game at least. That again isn’t a complaint, it is just the reality and the new management were acutely aware of this when they arrived. There is however a slight difference between knowing it and then experiencing it.

The very best tend to learn more from defeats than from a run of wins. You must ask yourself what the weaknesses on the day were and what can you do to learn from them. Right now, many people are asking should the back-three system be ditched as we struggled in the first half against Man United and then again versus Brighton under that tactic, but then improved markedly when we went to a back four? If only it were that simple, a lot depends on the personnel used and the quality and system the opposition are utilising.

You have to be fair-minded and accept that in this inaugural period, with so many new things being asked of many of our players including positions and systems, you will only really find out everyone’s capabilities during game time, especially during the tough games. It has to be a quick learning curve and there have to be blips along the way.

There is the other problem of the odd dip in form here and there. Not everyone is in top form all the time and managing these lows isn’t always easy. Sometimes dropping a player out of the team involvement completely can make things worse for him and choke off what is left of his confidence and self-belief. One of Graham Potter’s great tenets is to care about the individual, so these aren’t easy calls for any manager but maybe particularly him. It is another reason why tomorrow’s team selection will be so intriguing.

Every player decision, every managerial call and every tactical change will be under the microscope even more now, but then win a couple of games in a row (and yes, there is a very challenging game coming up at the weekend against Arsenal) and everything will be Hunky Dory again, and that is the way it works at this level.