Why West Ham might be the right place for Graham Potter to rebuild his career after Chelsea failure | OneFootball

West Ham is not a plum job but some key factors could suit Potter as he bids to repair his reputation

Graham Potter had waited a long time to return to management before accepting the West Ham job.

Across 21 months since being sacked by Chelsea in April 2023, all manner of offers had been rebuffed.

Even as talks were ongoing with West Ham this week, rumours swirled that Everton’s new owners were keen on Potter as a Sean Dyche upgrade.

Graham Potter has been appointed by West Ham on a two-and-a-half year contract

Getty Images

“I am the only coach in world football to be linked with Stoke City and Napoli in the same week,” Potter himself quipped when appearing on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football earlier this season.

And so, the question figures: after so much careful pruning of suitors and such determined patience that, having been stung at Chelsea, his next job must be right, why this one, and why now?

Six months ago, West Ham looked an inviting proposition: a club with recent European pedigree, a squad full of internationals, a big stadium and money to spend.

The second David Moyes era had ended on a flat note, sure, but had broadly stabilised an often volatile club and left it in a position ripe to kick on. Now, the Hammers sit 14th, already out of a European race they were never in.

They are conceding goals for fun, missing their two most prolific forwards of the Premier League era to serious injuries, still waiting to see a return on their summer investments and, all in all, looking a bit of a mess. A plum gig, it is not.

Perhaps the walls have simply closed a little on Potter. What began as an intended sabbatical had rumbled on longer than the 49-year-old would have liked. He admitted in an interview back in September that he had “felt ready to return for a little while”.

The Manchester United and England jobs have gone (though you would not bet against one or both coming up again within 18 months) and it is difficult to spot a landing at a club with greater heft and potential than West Ham, for all their immediate prospects are slim.

Potter has been out of work for 21 months following his departure from Chelsea

Mike Egerton/PA Wire

Given they face Aston Villa away in the FA Cup on Friday night, their season could be as good as over by the time Potter takes charge of a league game.

But maybe, just maybe, that may provide Potter with room to succeed and, indeed, rebuild a personal reputation that took a battering at Chelsea in what he described as a “perfect storm”.

There, he never quite seemed comfortable in the novel spotlight of such a high-profile job and admitted that a chaotic schedule in a season condensed by Qatar’s winter World Cup left him little time to implement his style of play.

Though the clubs are incomparable historically, the size of the current job at West Ham is more similar to that at Brighton, where Potter last excelled. There is scrutiny, of course, but not quite on the Stamford Bridge scale.

His communication was criticised at Chelsea, but even Potter’s press conference manner will compare favourably to that of Julen Lopetegui, whose drab interactions with the media and, by proxy, the club’s fans did his cause no good.

Crucially, with West Ham’s season effectively sunk, he will find a fanbase receptive to - indeed, desperate for - stylistic change. Early concerns from supporters that Lopetegui’s appointment did not represent a bold enough shift from the pragmatic Moyes have been wholly justified.

Potter, though not the exciting, charisma-bomb, Iraola-esque pick, is a coach in a far more progressive mould. Sure, his most recent experience was not a good one, but that does not make him permanently damaged goods.

The Premier League is littered with coaches - Nuno Espirito Santo, Unai Emery - who had to take a small step down from a job gone wrong to set their careers back on track. There really is no shame in that.