West Ham’s search for a new manager concluded earlier today when they officially announced Graham Potter as their new Head Coach.
David Sullivan has previously expressed the view that he thought a lot of Potter’s success at Brighton was due to the club’s infrastructure rather solely his managerial capabilities. As a result the appointment did initially raise some eyebrows, and for it to succeed, the board will need to replicate the Brighton model at West Ham, and fully support their new Head Coach.
At Chelsea, Potter had innovative ideas, yet couldn’t get the team to play the way he wanted. Potter openly admitted in a recent interview, “Chelsea was the hardest job in football, not that I couldn’t do it but if you go in and take a sledgehammer to a place and change it that quickly sometimes there will be collateral damage.”
Chelsea fans didn’t want a “project” as they felt they were a club that should already be winning trophies, especially with a transfer spend of nearly £600m. One fan said that the club was a Ferrari in need of a new driver, while others criticised Potter as “clueless” on Talk Sport. This was a far cry from his time at Brighton where he was praised for his work.
Narcis Pelach – former Stoke Manager – announced as Graham Potter’s assistant
Potter has already identified his team: Narcis Pelach is his assistant, with Billy Reid and Bruno Salter also joining his coaching staff. Coming into a club that had European ambitions at the start of the season, he is aware of the high expectations, but is eager to prove himself and is excited to take on the challenge.
It is widely believed that Karen Brady played a key role in pushing for his appointment. Paul Brady (Peschisolido) is a good friend and former playing colleague of Graham Potter during their time at Birmingham City.
As for Tim Steidten’s future role it remains unclear. While he met with Potter during discussions, he was told in January that he would no longer have the final say on transfers with both David Sullivan and the new head coach to have greater involvement. Sullivan has been candid about his dissatisfaction with some of Steidtens’s signings last summer.
There are theories suggesting Steidten, a hire of billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s is the Czech businessman’s representative at the club. What cannot be ignored is the German Technical Director had fallen out with both David Moyes and Julen Lopetegui and the club will not tolerate a repeat of this.
In actual fact Bruno is his assistant and not Narcis Pelach who is one of the coaches together with Billy Reid and Xavi Valero who stays on as goalkeeper coach.
And as an interesting aside, Bruno twice played for unai Emery the Aston Villa boss in Spain and went on to play for Brighton. At the end of his playing career he worked in management set up at Brighton as assistant to Potter. When Potter moved on to Chelsea he took over as interim manager of Chelsea for one game until one Frank Lampard was given the job.
My reservation is lack of patience…this hiring and firing can’t go on forever. Moyes had his day but it was still a saga, Jlo unfortunately didn’t click and now I already hear mumbles to the effect of not my choice. GP is not a quick fix merchant he builds as a project so we have to exercise patience,the difference here is that I would hope to see a definite style developing,something that we never had with Jlo. I’m sick of the bad publicity our club has had to endure,so let’s be realistic and get behind GP and the team and talk football not politics. ⚒️⚒️⚒️⚒️
Sully has made many mistakes but is at least one of our own. The club is also in a much better shape than when he and DG bought the club.
Our Czech minority shareholder is only in it to make money. He also has too many other interests to devote anytime to running a football club.
Supporters need to realise that we currently have the cheapest tickets in London. This is unlike to be the case with another owner
I find it ironic that you say Sullivan says he didn’t actually rate potter but has full praise for the Brighton model of management and recruitment. So it does beg the question why doesn’t he employ it at our club and stop sticking his uninformed nose in where it is not of any use or wanted…
I really don’t get this constant sniping at Sullivan. The man – or Little Napoleon as he is titled- is the principal shareholder, and as with any business, he gets to put in his twopennorth, some of us remember the Icelandic owners.
He, with David Gold, have been involved in the Club for the past 14 years and we’ve been in the Premier for the past 10 years. We’ve had European football for the past 3 to 4 years and 18 months ago won our Second European Trophy ( en passant I was at both Euro Finals ).
This season has been decidely grim but did he select Alvarez, Rodriguez, Todibo, Mavrapanos – there’s your problem, we may yet to have to fire the other guy.
We know who controls the signings for West Ham – Will Salthouse. While these dubious spiv agents and Sullivan mingle, nothing is going to change. Having a DOF is pure tokenism until Sullivan is forced out. Daniel! It’s up to you! This is not about Steidten or Lopetegui or Potter – this a turf war at Boardroom level and a certain Little Napolean doesn’t like losing, ever.
The moment kretinsky decides to make his move Sullivan will have no say once he relinquished his 51% shares the majority taken by kretinsky Sullivans dictatorship was over, if and when he thinks Sullivan isn’t up to it and really damaging the club he will step in ,he has an option to take over when it suits
Lets be honest, Steidten is hardly likely to be popular with managers that he’s been tasked with finding replacements for. He’s put in an awkward position when he is told to do that, I too would want to work from somewhere other than the training ground if I had that task.
It also seems that he didn’t have final say on transfers last window either as I doubt that it was Steidten that decided not to pay a bit more for Duran and if it wasn’t then he didn’t have final say.
“What cannot be ignored is the German Technical Director had fallen out with both David Moyes and Julen Lopetegui and the club will not tolerate a repeat of this.”
Yes and they both shipped a lot of goals with their tactics. 74 Prem goals for Moyes and already 39 in 20 Prem games for Stroppy, so on course to ship even in more than last season. Could easy have ended up as 80 goals by the end of the season.
Onwards and upwards with a guy who has a lot to prove and has a pedigree of football nous. The perfect man for this club now. Well done Brady for insisting to overrule Sullivan who appointed the Stroppy mistake. Hopefully Steidten will get an opportunity to work with Potter.