Graham Potter’s last public act as a West Ham manager was to smile and laugh about the latest internet memes poking fun at his troubles in East London. It was, sadly, a moment of levity that came too late.
Potter spent too much of his time at his third Premier League football club carrying the weight of the world publicly on his shoulders. Glowering, simmering and, ultimately, struggling. Failing.
West Ham was the wrong club for Potter. It felt like that from the moment he ended his long exile post-Chelsea by accepting the role. With every faltering step he took, that feeling – that sense of certainty – only hardened.
Everyone else could see it. Why couldn’t he? Whey couldn’t they?
Potter is a builder and a planner. A nurturer. West Ham – for all that they say otherwise – have never really been in the market for any of that. And so he has fallen through the cracks of life at the wrong football club. Again.
For those who care about West Ham, Potter’s unravelling has been painful to watch. But it has been similarly so for those of us who care about English coaches and their development and prospects.
Graham Potter took a press conference on Friday and was sacked on Saturday
Potter was able to laugh off the viral memes of his face but that levity came too late
Potter, quite simply, has been broken by the Premier League. Unable to deal with the increased spotlight that came with his move from Brighton to Chelsea, he has simply not recovered and now it is reasonable to ask whether he ever will.
Where optimism and empathy and a sense of self-worth emanated from a 50-year-old who was once good at seeing bigger pictures, we now find all of that buried beneath the detritus of two spells at big London football clubs.
This game at the highest level can do that to people. It can burn deeply. Potter now stands as the latest victim.
He can have no complaints at the brutal manner of his dismissal. Those who recoil at the thought of a manager being allowed to take a pre-match press conference on a Friday only to find his replacement readying himself to take training the next morning don’t really understand the way this game works.
There are those at Brighton who still talk darkly of the way Potter upped and left for Chelsea on that September morning almost exactly three years ago. There will certainly be no sleep lost at the Amex when they look at Potter’s diminished status now.
In terms of where he goes next, we must hope that we don’t lose him to the continent. It was in Sweden, after all, where he built the reputation that prompted Swansea to bring him home in 2018. The pull of a quieter life abroad will be strong for him now.
But one of the great mistakes we make in this country is to judge a coach’s worth solely through the prism of Premier League results. Jobs at that level demand so much more than an ability to do your work well on the grass. Only a minority arrive with the full package and it’s not often the ones that we would expect.
West Ham was always the wrong club for Potter, who is a nurturer and wants time to build
Potter has been broken by the Premier League after two short tenures, including Chelsea
The truth – doubtless scoffed at now at Stamford Bridge and the London Stadium – is that Potter remains one of the English game’s most gifted coaches and our game would do well to try and find a place for him now.
What we know is that it won’t be in the Premier League. His race at the top level feels like it is run and deep down he may feel it too.
But there are many clubs further down the pyramid – those with less sense of urgency and where the lights burn less brightly – who may benefit from a bright, clever ideas man who knows how to develop players and think cleverly when it comes to tactics.
Potter must prove all that again now. He starts from zero. His advocates have disappeared, hiding behind win percentages at West Ham and Chelsea that admittedly reflect dreadfully on him.
Coventry boss Frank Lampard can serve as an example for how Potter might move forward now
But time spent with Frank Lampard last season was to understand how he has benefited from the quiet and relative lack of fuss that accompanies his new life at Coventry in the Championship.
Lampard has found the EFL a place in which to rebuild and this may have to be Potter’s route now. Equally the FA could do worse than absorb him into their own coaching network.
That may suit him. West Ham didn’t suit him. Nor did Chelsea. But it’s pertinent to ask now whether they were ever going to. There are lessons here to be learned by everybody.
