Graham Potter Thread

[Reddish-Blue 2,537]

17 hours ago, lucio said:

He’s barely the same level as moyes or Rodgers. Anyone who didn’t buy into the english hype could see he was gonna suck 

I don't see too many differences between him & Moyes.  They both got a top 4 job which was out of their league and they proved that the gap between mid-table & a top 4 side is massive (especially when it comes to managers). 

Rodgers has quality, maybe not top 4 quality but I wouldn't be shocked to see him at Spurs or somewhere in the top half of the table in the near future. 

[Blue Armour 4,488]

Legacy of Potter (and Boehly):

Us having to sell members of our champions league winning squad to make up for FFP

How the mighty have fallen.

[Mário César 1,357]

the problems began in pre season when we lost to arsenal

even with tuchel we were very poor 

I remember everton game, zagreb game 

[Fulham Broadway 17,378]

Odds on to be next West Ham manager

[NikkiCFC 8,389]

 

[Vesper 30,335]

On 07/09/2023 at 18:21, NikkiCFC said:

 

he wants to replace Fraudgate

and the FA is stupid enough to perhaps do it

[OneMoSalah 8,914]

On 09/09/2023 at 12:53, Vesper said:

he wants to replace Fraudgate

and the FA is stupid enough to perhaps do it

Well we were stupid enough to hire him. So would say the FA just as bad.

[TheHulk 2,513]

On 09/09/2023 at 14:53, Vesper said:

he wants to replace Fraudgate

and the FA is stupid enough to perhaps do it

England aren't winning shit anytime soon if so.

[Vesper 30,335]

What now, Graham Potter?

https://theathletic.com/5332242/2024/03/16/graham-potter-Chelsea-man-utd/

When Premier League managers get sacked, they tend to stay quiet for a while before entering a TV studio or appearing on a podcast, as if to remind us all they still exist.

Frequently in these situations, they note how being dismissed will make them a better manager in the long run, while veering away from throwing shade at the players who contributed to their downfall or the higher-ups who wielded the axe.

It is a path followed by most in the business at some stage, including Jose Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino and, more recently, Jesse Marsch.

You could argue their motive is to put themselves back into the shop window for owners and chairmen getting itchy feet about their club’s current manager or head coach. 

Graham Potter, however, opted for a different route after his Chelsea dismissal on April 2 last year.

Instead of talking tactics with Jamie Carragher under the bright lights in Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football studio, he pretty much vanished; and as we approach a year since his departure, he has still rarely been seen. Media interview requests have been rejected, holidays taken and possible new jobs turned down.

There was also a trip to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic at the end of February to deliver a keynote speech to the British Armed Forces based there. Andrew Murrison MP, the parliamentary under-secretary of state at the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD), had to clarify that Potter had not been hired for the visit by the MOD after being asked the question by opposition MP Rosena Allin-Khan.

While in the Falklands, which is an internally self-governing overseas territory of the United Kingdom but located around 300 miles (500km) off the coast of Argentina, Potter also visited youth side Falklands Football Club and spoke at Stanley College in the capital, also named Stanley, before participating in an off-the-record Q+A where no questions were off limits.

“It came about at really short notice,” explains Michael Poole, a coach for Falklands FC. “One of our colleagues at the club had heard an advert on the British Forces Broadcasting Service radio station that Graham was coming over to give a talk about leadership and dealing with difficult situations.

“The football club asked if there was any chance he could come and meet with people who love and enjoy football in Stanley and he was more than happy to.

“Some of us adults were even more excited than some of the kids! He was fantastic. He was really friendly and incredibly patient with us all. He spent a couple of hours outside on the all-weather football pitch and spoke to the kids at the start before speaking to the senior players.”

“The guys found his talk really interesting,” added Mike Summers OBE, chair of the islands’ National Sports Council. “It is not something we are generally exposed to or able to participate in.

“We rather wished we had a bit more time and notice, as we could have arranged a game for him to coach the Stanley team. He did a crossbar challenge with senior members of the Stanley squad and went in goal for the junior players when they took penalties.”

The one thing Potter didn’t do was give away the next move in his career.

And as Chelsea continue to struggle in the post-Roman Abramovich era, you wonder whether some club owners will look back at his troubled, seven-month spell at Stamford Bridge and look at it in a slightly kinder light.

After his achievements in Sweden and with previous club Brighton, are we coming close to seeing the return of Potter at last?

---

Potter was brought to Chelsea in September 2022 after their new owners decided to sack Thomas Tuchel six games into the new Premier League season and implement a ‘long-term’ strategy they hoped would return a club that had won five league titles, two Champions Leagues and six FA Cups this century to the top of the game.

Impressed by what he had achieved in three seasons at Brighton, Potter was the one co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali wanted to take Chelsea into a new era, coinciding with their significant splash in the transfer market, spending £550million in their first summer.

Less than seven months into that new era, however, and despite having paid Brighton £21million to hire Potter and several members of his coaching and backroom staff, he was sacked after losing 11 and drawing eight of his 31 matches in charge, leaving the west London club 11th in the Premier League and 12 points outside the top four spots that bring Champions League qualification. 

 

In a joint statement, Boehly and Eghbali said they had the “highest degree” of respect for Potter and that they were “disappointed” they needed to make another change in the dugout.

It would have been easy for Potter to throw mud at Chelsea; after all, to many, they had become the definition of how not to run a football club and there is a strong case to be made that he was a victim of the ownership’s blase approach to just about everything, as opposed to his coaching not being at an adequate level.

Sometimes silence can speak for itself and Potter has largely remained off the grid since his dismissal. 

Given how Pochettino has struggled this season in his first year as Chelsea coach, the now 48-year-old Englishman must have a sense of vindication that he was not the problem and that it may have more to do with the frantic way the club has conducted its business.

Following his dismissal, several other managerial jobs have become available, most notably elsewhere in the Premier League at Tottenham Hotspur, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest, and his name is often linked to vacancies.

When Janne Andersson, manager of the Sweden men’s national team, stepped down in November after they failed to qualify for the 2024 European Championship, the country’s FA attempted to appoint Potter. He is known in Sweden having managed Ostersund between 2011 and 2018, leading them from the fourth tier into the top division and winning its FA Cup equivalent. They also got to the knockout phase of the Europa League, beating Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium along the way.

“You can say this, the list of names that have been sent to me or that I am reading, it is clear that he (Potter) is part of that list,” Andrea Mollerberg, the Swedish FA’s general secretary, said. “We’ll see what we filter down and who is interested in this role.”

In late December, Potter and his wife, Rachel, bought a villa in Are, a Swedish ski resort, with the estate agent involved, Joakim Wiklund, telling the local press he had been working on the transaction since last March and that his customers asked him to “keep a very low profile”.

Having passed on the opportunity to return to management with Sweden, the expectation within the industry is that Potter will take a role somewhere this summer — should the right one become available.

“There is no doubting he is a good manager and good with people and players,” said a source who has come up against Potter in the Premier League, speaking anonymously to protect relationships. “He is ideal for building a long-term programme.

“His time at Chelsea raises question marks as to whether his personality is strong enough for a big job and what that entails, but that doesn’t make him a bad coach. He definitely isn’t that!”

Potter is already the bookies’ favourite to be the next Manchester United manager should their new minority shareholder INEOS — the petrochemicals firm founded by British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe — decide to sack Erik ten Hag.

United’s incoming sporting director, Dan Ashworth, has been placed on gardening leave by current employers Newcastle United as the two Premier League clubs negotiate a compensation package. Ashworth knows Potter well and the pair have a close relationship, heightened from their successful time as colleagues at Brighton from 2019 to 2022.

---

According to Poole, Potter’s trip to the Falkland Islands stemmed from a conversation he’d had over the festive period about wanting to visit the archipelago — the subject of a brief war between the UK and Argentina in 1982 over sovereignty.

“He was over for four days,” Poole said. “He spent one afternoon with us in Stanley and the rest of the time he was with the military and he mentioned flying around the islands to some of the more remote places where the military are based, to say hello.

“He was keen to see some penguins and that was being organised for him.”

Although his time at the football club was, for those present, a roaring success, it was not until he delivered a speech followed by a Q+A session at Stanley College that they saw him open up about his career.

“There were two elements to the Q+A,” Poole says. “One was the open bit up at the football pitch, which was more about the best players he’s coached and that kind of thing and also talking about his career as a coach.

“After his short talk on leadership, he did another Q+A and this was off-the-record, but he was incredibly candid about his career and why he had moved roles.

“He was there to talk about leadership generally and was trying to get across some key messages. All we wanted to talk about after was his time at Chelsea and individual players, but he was happy to answer those and was a lot more open than I thought he would be.”

Potter was said to be relaxed and took each question in his stride, noting the differences between Brighton and Chelsea and why he was unable to make his mark at the latter.

Although Potter’s trip to the Falklands had nothing to do with lining himself up for a new job, it has served as a reminder that he remains available for employment.

This summer will see managerial vacancies at Liverpool (taking over when Jurgen Klopp steps down), Bayern Munich (replacing Tuchel) and Barcelona (where Xavi is also quitting), as well as potentially Manchester United. Going back two years, you could argue Potter would have been a strong candidate for such Premier League vacancies.

But those seven months at Chelsea left questions about his suitability for a club of that stature and they will remain unanswered until he talks publicly about his experience at Stamford Bridge or proves his doubters wrong in his next job.

If he is still clubless in the summer, Potter will have been out of work for more than a year.

It is already his longest spell without a job since his managerial career began in the depths of non-League in 2008 and he surely won’t want his unemployment to extend into the 2024-25 season, as there is a danger yesterday’s man becomes the forgotten man.

[NikkiCFC 8,389]

 

[Vesper 30,335]

Graham Potter: ‘Frustration and anger’ over Chelsea sacking but no regrets taking the job

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5798766/2024/09/27/graham-potter-Chelsea-sacking/

Graham Potter says there was “frustration and anger” over the way his Chelsea tenure ended but he does not regret taking the job.

Potter was dismissed seven months into a five-year contract in April 2023 after Chelsea paid a £20million buyout clause to bring him to Stamford Bridge from Brighton & Hove Albion the previous September. Brighton subsequently qualified for the Europa League under his successor Roberto De Zerbi.

The 49-year-old was the first head coach appointment of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital regime and he was tasked with overhauling a squad in transition following a spend of over £500m across the first two transfer windows under the new ownership.

He won just seven of his 22 Premier League matches and the timing of his dismissal denied him the chance to lead the side against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals.

“I worked really, really hard to get that type of opportunity,” Potter told the Telegraph. “It was about choosing the right opportunity (after the job done at Brighton). And I didn’t choose the wrong one, it just didn’t work out.

“I don’t have any regrets over doing it, but, at the same time, when anybody loses their job, there’s an element of frustration, anger and maybe bitterness at some point.”

GO DEEPER

'There were so many players, some had to change in corridor' - Potter's surreal Chelsea reign

Chelsea spent £300m in January but won just four games across all competitions in 2023 before Potter was dismissed. He said he understood the large transfer outlay brought a demand for results but patience was needed when signing an influx of players from outside the Premier League. Big money additions Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk, Benoit Badiashile and Noni Madueke all joined from elsewhere in Europe.

The Athletic reported that the squad was so bloated, some players had to change in the corridor and sit on the floor during team meetings.

“If you spend £300m, the pressure on the team goes up.” he added. “If I’d have spent it on Harry Kane and Declan Rice, then fair enough, but at the time that was the decision.”

Potter has been out of management since leaving Chelsea 17 months ago but multiple openings have come his way. The Athletic reported in June Brighton were considering hiring him for a second spell in charge after De Zerbi’s departure. He said it had not been the correct moment to re-join to the south coast club but did not rule out returning in the future.

In May, Potter declined the opportunity to take the Ajax job as he felt the opportunity was not right for him at the time. He was also considered a candidate for the England position after Gareth Southgate stepped down following the European Championship earlier this summer. Potter said while international management was not off the table, he preferred the day-to-day routine of the club game.

GO DEEPER

England's manager search: Potter, Howe, Pochettino - and the FA's key decision-maker

[Vesper 30,335]

Inside Graham Potter’s eight months at West Ham: Intense pressure, clashes with key figures

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6637420/2025/09/28/west-ham-graham-potters-inside-clashes/

It was during a team meeting on Saturday morning that West Ham United’s squad suspected something was different.

Training at the club’s main hub, Rush Green, was scheduled to start at 9.30am and head coach Graham Potter arrived early to prepare for Monday’s match away to Everton. But that session with his squad was disrupted by the 50-year-old wandering in and out of the room. It was not common for him to behave in this manner, which confused the players.

It turned out Potter, who only succeeded summer 2024 appointment Julen Lopetegui in January, had been told he too had been relieved of his duties. The former Brighton and Chelsea manager then informed the players and said his farewells, with many of the squad shocked at the timing of the decision. Club secretary Andrew Pincher tried to ease their concerns by reassuring them someone new would be overseeing training at 12.30pm.

The players were initially unaware that person would be Nuno Espirito Santo. Former West Ham manager Slaven Bilic held conversations with the board over a return, but Nuno was their preferred option. They first entertained the possibility of the Portuguese replacing Potter earlier this month, when he was sacked as Nottingham Forest head coach.

West Ham officially announced Potter’s dismissal at 10.35am and confirmed Nuno, who has signed a three-year contract, as his successor four hours later. The 51-year-old will be assisted initially by academy coaches Mark Robson, Steve Potts, Gerard Prenderville and Billy Lepine, with a further announcement on his coaching staff expected in due course.

“I am very pleased to be here and very proud to be representing West Ham United,” Nuno told the club’s website. “The work has already started and I am looking forward to the challenge that is ahead.”

Potter won only six of his 25 games during his eight months at West Ham, including two (against Fulham on January 14 and Leicester City on February 27) of his 12 home matches. Supporters turned on him during the 2-1 defeat by visitors Crystal Palace last Saturday with chants of, “You don’t know what you’re doing”, and, “You’re getting sacked in the morning”. But, despite being under pressure, he did not expect his week to end like this.

 

Graham Potter talks to players during his last game in charge on September 20 (Rob Newell/CameraSport via Getty Images)

He oversaw training on Monday, gave the squad Thursday off with the Everton match not until Monday and conducted his usual media duties on Friday. At that pre-match press conference, Potter spoke about his appreciation of the board, the need to fix West Ham’s problems together and the rather peculiar viral face-swap trend that involves him.

But as he acknowledged in a statement released after his departure, “the results have just not been good enough up to now”, and he leaves with West Ham 19th in the 20-team Premier League.

The Athletic has talked to people at the club close to the hierarchy and to players, and people close to the outgoing head coach. Everyone spoke under the condition of anonymity, to protect relationships.

We can reveal for the first time what went wrong for Potter at West Ham, including how:

• He was under intense pressure as early as May
• He clashed with players Edson Alvarez and Jean-Clair Todibo
• His concerns over captain Jarrod Bowen’s ability to lead the team
• The summer departures of Michail Antonio, Aaron Cresswell and Vladimir Coufal proved detrimental to team spirit.

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Before Potter signed a two-and-a-half-year contract to manage West Ham in January, a picture leaked online of him meeting their then technical director Tim Steidten in the foyer of a hotel. This annoyed Potter, who felt holding talks in such a public place was an amateurish move. But despite his frustration, he felt it was the right time to return to the touchline, 20 months after being sacked by Chelsea in April 2023.

“As soon as I spoke to this club, it felt right for me,” Potter said in his first West Ham press conference. “I spoke to the board and everyone connected with the club. This one felt like the right one. I’m really excited to be here with a passionate and brilliant fanbase. I think it’s a good fit.”

Potter learnt Spanish and sought advice from former England manager Roy Hodgson and current England rugby union head coach Steve Borthwick during his time away from the game. He was also heavily linked with the England job before Thomas Tuchel’s appointment late last year, so his arrival at the London Stadium was considered a coup.

But it was a relationship that was strained from the start, given protracted negotiations over the length of his contract. Majority shareholder David Sullivan was initially only willing to give Potter a deal until the end of last season, terms he was reluctant to accept. Karren Brady, the vice-chair, then led negotiations, and all parties agreed to Potter’s terms.

In his first week, he called a team meeting at the training ground and was happy with the players’ response about where improvement was needed. But he then got off to a rocky start on the pitch, losing 2-1 away to Aston Villa in the FA Cup in his first game in charge. Despite an encouraging performance that night, striker Niclas Fullkrug and winger Crysencio Summerville suffered hamstring injuries that would keep them out for three and seven months respectively. West Ham won only one of their next five games.

 

(Warren Little/Getty Images)

After the 1-0 home loss to Brentford on February 15, a team meeting was held. The players were aware that performance was not up to Potter’s standards. An honest discussion ensued, which yielded a positive display away to Arsenal a week later.

Bowen’s solitary goal secured the win on what will be remembered as just about the only day in the Potter era where it clicked. His 5-3-2 formation worked, and the team spirit was palpable after full time: Potter embraced his backroom staff, Alvarez mischievously celebrated in front of the Arsenal fans seated behind the dugouts and Todibo hopped on fellow defender Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s back. Bowen led the walk to the away enclosure, where supporters serenaded the squad with various chants.

Back in the dressing room, Potter told the players they had the next day off. It was not “Champagne football”, as he admitted in his post-match press conference, but it was a step in the right direction.

 

Potter’s West Ham won 1-0 at Arsenal in February (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

Hours later, Potter was pictured travelling on the London Underground. He had a funny exchange with an Arsenal supporter, who was not best pleased to see him. But for the coach, it felt like a match where he was rewarded for his efforts on the training ground.

A 2-0 home victory over Leicester a few days later meant West Ham had kept consecutive clean sheets for the first time since the November (when they drew 0-0 with Everton at home and won 2-0 away to Newcastle United under Lopetegui), and had their first back-to-back league wins since previous March, when David Moyes was still the manager.

The positive run, though, was not to last. By the May 11 visit to Manchester United, West Ham were winless in eight games.

Potter made three changes to the starting XI, with Coufal and midfielders Guido Rodriguez and James Ward-Prowse brought in to replace Emerson Palmieri, Lucas Paqueta and Fullkrug. Kyle Macaulay, the head of recruitment, emailed the team sheet to Sullivan, who was not pleased with the line-up. Potter was informed failing to win that day could cost him his job, but West Ham ended up leaving Old Trafford with a 2-0 victory, courtesy of goals from Bowen and Tomas Soucek.

Despite the team’s underwhelming performances, Potter remained confident he was the right man for the job. He thought his squad were responding well to feedback from him and his backroom staff.

In April, Potter spoke about the benefits of sharing “home truths” with the players. “You have to look people in the eye and speak honestly,” he said at a press conference. “They help clear the air and give people a chance to voice their frustrations. That’s something we do all the time. It helps us understand and look under the bonnet to see things clearer.”

One of Potter’s first acts at West Ham was to increase the intensity in training sessions and then give players time off. Under Lopetegui, some of the squad found it hard to understand what the Spaniard was trying to achieve, with the team often playing a possession-based game in training that had the goalkeepers sometimes mixing in with their outfield colleagues.

 

(Harry Murphy/Getty Images)

But Potter was very much hands-on, although he delegated most of the work to assistants Billy Reid, Bruno Saltor, Narcis Pelach and Prenderville, who was promoted from the club’s under-21s setup earlier this month.

Reid, Saltor and goalkeeper coaches Casper Ankergren and Linus Kandolin have all left the club with Potter.

Many of the players enjoyed how meticulous the head coach was when going over details pre-and post-match but, as poor results continued, some felt this information went in one ear and out the other.

---

Potter inherited a tempestuous group when he followed the shortest-lived managerial appointment in the club’s 130-year history, with Lopetegui sacked after just 22 games. The new boss did not want history to repeat itself, although there were further dressing-room incidents.

He also had concerns about the lack of leaders in the team, and appointed James Bell as a sports psychologist to help his squad better manage stressful situations. A common theme this season has been how quiet the dressing-room was after matches. Even following heavy losses to London rivals Chelsea and Tottenham, none of the senior players were vocal. Instead, it was Potter who did most of the talking.

There were also questions over Bowen’s inability to lead the team. Although he is considered the club’s best player, he is not perhaps naturally suited to the captaincy and had a heated exchange with a West Ham supporter following last month’s Carabao Cup loss at Wolves.

 

Jarrod Bowen tends to do his talking on the pitch (Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images)

In April, Potter took issue with Fullkrug launching a diatribe against his team-mates after a 1-1 draw at home to already-relegated Southampton. The 32-year-old Germany international told Sky Sports of his “anger” at the display, saying “we didn’t have the ability or the motivation to push up”, and adding: “The motivation… sorry, we were s**t. I’m very angry.”

Although Fullkrug didn’t get fined over the episode, Potter was not pleased with the comments, which further cemented his view of a player who is one of West Ham’s highest earners.

To compound matters, Potter had a disagreement with Alvarez that same month and felt a summer departure for the midfielder would be best for all parties. In August, Mexico captain Alvarez joined Turkish club Fenerbahce on loan in a deal including an option to make the move permanent at the end of the season.

Todibo is another who did not have the greatest relationship with Potter. Having initially joined on loan from Nice in the summer of 2024, West Ham activated a £32.8million ($43.9m at the current rate) obligation to buy in June. Todibo, who has two caps for France, rejected a move to Juventus in favour of West Ham. Countryman Alphonse Areola also advised the defender to turn down the Italian side and join him at the London Stadium.

But Todibo frustrated Potter with his inconsistent performances and was dropped for the 3-0 defeat by Tottenham two weeks ago over bad timekeeping. He did not produce a performance in training that was up to Potter’s standards on September 11 and was called to the head coach’s office and told to improve. But then he arrived late the following day.

Full-back Emerson lost his place in the latter stages of last season. The 31-year-old wanted to stay to fight for a recall, but Potter had other ideas. The left-back was not properly fit when he reported for pre-season and arrived late for training on a few occasions. Potter told the Italy international to train with the under-21s, and he was omitted from West Ham’s pre-season tour to the United States so he could find a new club. Eventually, on deadline day at the start of this month, Emerson joined Marseille for a small fee, becoming West Ham’s tenth departure in a summer that began with Mohammed Kudus being sold to Spurs for £55million.

Antonio, the club’s record Premier League goalscorer, Cresswell and Coufal all departed in May upon the expiry of their contracts. The trio were popular members of the dressing room. Antonio, for example, was in charge of the squad’s fines system, would keep his fellow players in check and organised team-bonding sessions. Nobody has really replaced him as that figure.

There is some sympathy for Potter among the players that this situation is not all his fault. He tried his best to unite the squad, but his decisions to get rid of some big characters counted against him.

El Hadji Malick Diouf (Slavia Prague), Soungoutou Magassa (Monaco), Mateus Fernandes (Southampton) and Mads Hermansen (Leicester) came in over the summer, with Igor Julio joining on a season-long loan from Brighton, and Kyle Walker-Peters and Callum Wilson signing as free agents. West Ham spent around £125million altogether and, in pre-season, there was excitement from within over what they could achieve in their 2025-26 campaign. The atmosphere at the training ground, according to staff who work there, felt more together, more holistic.

But the feel-good factor evaporated following a chastening 3-0 opening-weekend loss away to promoted Sunderland. Further defeats by Chelsea, Wolves, Tottenham and Crystal Palace added to Potter’s woes.

Tara Warren, West Ham’s executive director, never usually attends their managers’ press conferences but was present when Potter addressed the media last Thursday, September 18, before the Palace game, and he faced reporters on Friday, the day before his dismissal, too.

In a statement released by the League Managers Association later on Saturday, Potter said he was “incredibly disappointed” to be leaving West Ham, “particularly without being able to achieve what we set out to achieve at the start of our journey in east London”.

Over to you, Nuno!