Has Graham Potter aimed a cheeky dig at West Ham & Chelsea? | OneFootball

Graham Potter has taken a new swipe...

Graham Potter is hardly a popular figure at West Ham and Chelsea, but in an interesting new development, the current Sweden national team boss appears to have bitten back at two of his former clubs with a thinly-veiled dig on social media.

Potter has moved away from domestic club football after enduring a particularly difficult tenure with West Ham and was relieved of his duties at the London Stadium a year ago, swiftly returning to management by taking the then-vacant post in charge of Sweden.

The divisive 51-year-old has fared better since venturing internationally and returning to the country where he kick-started his managerial journey with Ostersunds FK, it must be said, but as he prepares to oversee Sweden's looming UEFA Nations League campaign with fixtures against Romania, Poland and Bosnia and Herzegovina all ahead in the coming weeks, he's still found the time to fire a dig towards both West Ham and Chelsea.

Graham Potter fires new West Ham and Chelsea dig

Earlier this week, Potter shared his undertaking of a Pilates session to his official Instagram account - and perhaps didn't get the reception he was hoping for from some fans who still resent his difficult pair of spells in London.

A comment of "Hopefully you are better at Pilates than you are a football manager 🥴🤣" was met with a quick swipe from the ex-Brighton head coach, who bit back and made his thoughts clear on why it went wrong for him at both Stamford Bridge and the London Stadium.

As you can only imagine - and as Potter himself would've been expecting, no doubt - the dig hasn't gone down too well, and while some simply laughed at the Sweden boss getting one back, others piled on with fury.

Potter did insist in a later comment that he wasn't directly referencing West Ham, but with the first dig having been made by a Hammers supporter, it may take more than that to convince those in East London. Either way, it's a definitive swipe at Chelsea, and that wasn't the last either.

He engaged in a separate back-and-fourth with a Chelsea fan, too, who he judged to have a "small brain" after being labelled as the "real dismantler" of the West London giants.

Graham Potter isn't popular among West Ham supporters

Potter's most recent post simply confirmed what we already know about his standing with West Ham supporters, which isn't favourable as many continue to put the blame of the eventual relegation firmly upon his shoulders.

Under his watch, West Ham would spend up to £126 million on eight new signings across the summer of 2025 and, with Potter still having some post-Chelsea credit in the bank for his previous work at Brighton, there was genuine hope that he was the man to kick the Hammers back into gear.

It didn't work out anything like that, though, and the rot would start for what followed when Potter was swiftly dismissed last September following just eight months in charge, with a run of four defeats from five games spelling the end of his unsuccessful time with the club.

West Ham moved for Nuno Espirito Santo, who had much of the season to turn his side's fortunes around and fell agonisingly short od doing so, but a lot of fans still harbour ill-feeling towards Potter for a litany of unsuccessful big-money signings and an opening run of form which very much set the tone for their eventual relegation from the Premier League.

Graham Potter is doing better with Sweden after Chelsea, West Ham spells

Potter can put his nightmares at Chelsea and West Ham to one side, though, with the Englishman somewhat rebuilding his stock with the Swedish national team after taking them to the most recent World Cup.

It looked like deja vu when Potter's spell began poorly with a 4-1 defeat to Switzerland and a disappointing 1-1 draw at home against Slovenia, although thrilling play-off victories over Ukraine and Poland ensured he delivered when it mattered most and would ultimately book their ticket across the Atlantic.

Sweden were plucked in a tough group with the Netherlands and Japan - alongside minnows Tunisia - and ultimately benefited from the ability for third-placed teams with a higher accumulation of points to qualitfy for the knockout stages as they lost just one of their three group stage matches.

Potter's side were then soundly beaten by a Kylian Mbappe-inspired France in a 3-0 round-of-32 rout, but with three wins, three draws and four defeats from his opening ten matches while qualifying for the World Cup and escaping a tough group before meeting the tournament's firm favourites at that stage, he's faring much better these days than he was at West Ham or Chelsea.