Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has told Graham Potter not to let pressure “destroy his life” as the under-fire Chelsea boss battles to avoid being sacked by the London club following a string of poor results.

After losing to Tottenham on Sunday, Chelsea is now in 10th place in the Premier League. They are 26 points behind the leaders, Arsenal.

Since September, when Potter took over for the fired Thomas Tuchel, his team has only won nine of 26 games in all competitions.

The former manager of Brighton said last week that angry Chelsea fans have sent death threats to him and his children.

Potter recently talked about how fans and Chelsea’s owners need to be patient while he rebuilds his team after a big spending spree on new players in January. He used Arsenal’s improvement this season under Arteta as an example.

Potter said he had seen the Amazon documentary “All or Nothing.” It was made during a hard season for Arsenal, when they missed a chance to finish in the top four.

“Two years into Mikel’s reign he’s close to getting the sack and people are wanting him out and it’s a disaster,” he said.

“Now things have changed a little bit and that’s just the way it is.”

Arteta’s team can go five points ahead of Everton and into first place in the Premier League if they beat Everton on Wednesday. However, Arteta admits that things weren’t always so good when he first started.

The Spaniard said: “I prefer not to talk about that”, he did admit he knows what the Chelsea boss is going through.

“Absolutely,” he replied when asked if he had empathy for Potter. “We are colleagues and we all know the pressure, the demands and the uncertainty that this industry has.

“The fact is the ball has to go into the net and there are many factors that prevent that, that you cannot control so of course you empathise because you suffer and you know how it is when he is going through those moments.

“You can have difficulties in your job and challenges, which we do, especially when you lose, but when you are winning as well because this job is so demanding. But you cannot destroy your life because of that.

“And your family, your friends, your loved ones, the people around you, doesn’t deserve to have their lives affected in such a negative way because you don’t win a football match.

“So that balance I think in my case was critical, but you need some help, someone to paint that picture in front of you because sometimes when you are in that position it is not easy to see.”