21 hours Ago By [email protected] (Brian Dick)
Graham Potter’s return to the Premier League, reported to be imminent as the curtain comes down on Julen Lopetegui’s West Ham tenure, will be one of the more noteworthy events of the 2024/25 campaign. The 49-year-old looks set to take his first job since leaving Chelsea in April 2023. He will do so against a backdrop of exasperation that it has taken getting on for two years for him to return, after all barely a top flight vacancy – and even some in the Championship – has gone by without Potter’s name being speculatively attached.
What is more than speculation, though, is the fact that in a different set of circumstances Potter could have already had his feet under the King Power table because nowhere was the former Brighton boss more frequently linked than with Leicester City. Not once, nor even twice but thrice did Potter reject the chance to manage the Foxes, first after Brendan Rodgers’ departure – on the same day as his own Stamford Bridge exit, then before Steve Cooper’s appointment last summer and then once again following Cooper’s dismissal. And yet, barely six weeks after Cooper left, Potter seems about to take over the Hammers, a club still in search of itself following their unlikely Europa Conference League victory.
City supporters could be forgiven for wondering why. Well, one important factor has already been alluded to. West Ham is a club that under David Moyes became used to not just playing but winning European football matches.
Their 2-1 victory over Fiorentina might feel like a lifetime away but in reality it provided a springboard for last term’s Europa League campaign. Moyes had his critics but he moved West Ham’s vista to more than Premier League survival. Proof of that is that even in this ‘down’ season, they are five places and nine points better off than City.
As a result they have assembled a stronger squad, with more established Premier League campaigners and while they might have the same kind of striker problem that blights Ruud van Nistelrooy, the rest of the Hammers senior boasts the likes of Jarrod Bowen, Lucas Paqueta and Mohammed Kudus who would walk into Leicester’s XI. How many City players can claim the reverse? Then there’s the off-field situation and the fact that City’s recruitment has come under attack . Jon Rudkin has been the lightning rod for many of the summer signings’ failure to make an impact, as well as the decision to appoint ex-Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper in the first place.
What is undeniable is that the director of football will have had his marketplace dealings curtailed by the club’s Profitability & Sustainability Rules worries – and while they might have dodged a points deduction this season – but there are fears they are not out of the woods yet. Then there’s the fact that in the summer, before Cooper’s selection, there was the lure of Gareth Southgate’s England role, Potter was being extensively linked as his successor before the Football Association went for Thomas Tuchel. Potter’s preference for West Ham could even come down to something superficial like wanting to live in London.
Whatever happens going forward, whether van Nistelrooy keeps City up, whether Potter brings the Hammers the success they crave with the style many of their fans see as tradition, the one thing that is clear is that while there might have been a genuine debate about the clubs’ relative merits two or three years ago, times have changed at the King Power..
