Actions will speak louder than words and Graham Potter will be judged by his results at West Ham. At present, that judgment is pretty damning. However, ‘the project’ as everyone seems to call it, will only really be visible after the summer window and as results begin to materialise next season. Until then, Hammers fans have a nervy wait crossing their fingers and hoping their manager can deliver.
West Ham will target younger players this summer, to bring down the average age of the Hammers’ squad, Potter has also revealed. So claims the standard.co.uk yesterday. Confirming his West Ham mission statement, Potter said :
“At Brighton, we left the club fourth on the table, with, in my opinion, the best pound-for-pound squad in the Premier League. If we can achieve the same at West Ham, we can be whatever you want to say. So you’ve got a winning team with value on the pitch”
Confirming his ambition to nurture, develop and sell young talent to make the club self-supporting, Potter continued:
“Three years’ time, if we can do that together then that’s fantastic. An equivalent of Caicedo, an equivalent of Mac Allister, an equivalent of Trossard, an equivalent of Sanchez, an equivalent of Dunk, an equivalent of Gross, at West Ham — that’s £200m of sales — Bissouma, Ben White, Marc Cucurella, Pervis Estupinan, those players.
If you can win and sell players then you should be happy with that performance. No?”
His chairman certainly will be. It is a lofty ambition on which to be judged.
The days of West Ham pumping millions into the club for player transfers are long gone in the new era of profit and sustainability rules: Player sales are the way to go, however much fans might dislike it.
Potter has set his stall out to capitalise on the club’s fantastic academy pipeline of talent, developing youngsters and selling them on. It is sustainable, it makes good business sense and it is the new football. So we’d all better get used to it.
Rodreougs ?
So he wants to turn us back in to a selling club basically…when you mention them players and he wants to do the same here…..HERE’S an idea . Why not find these Player’s like trossard and co at Brighton and them keep hold of them to try and win something …after all isn’t that’s what football is about …winning trophies…??? …
Silly question..to us fans it is …but its always £££££ that talks…..even if Potter does have success it won’t happen for a long time as we are now having another 7 orc8 players leaving or overhaul as you keep saying…so how can anyone think we will be settled by next season.. especially If they wait and wait to get the targets and introduce them 7 or 8 games in to the season..then by the time everyone is settled next season will be over already again..
I see nothing but trouble on the horizon tbh ..lets hope I’m.wrong
Because if you’ve got players performing at a certain standard they will invariably want to move to one of the top clubs or in some cases may even want a sideways move to a club like Arsenal 😉
The bit we need to get better at is recruitment and scouting in general. Identifying and buying players before they become ridiculously expensive and out of our reach. The much criticised signing of Guilherme for example may actually turn out to be good business in the long term.
All clubs bar maybe Real Madrid and one or two others are effectively selling clubs. So I wouldn’t worry too much about that.
Sounds like more Potter Bull**** Seems to be ALL he knows
All sounds good but if that’s the plan why hasn’t he put Casey and Orford on the bench instead of Rodreougs and cresswell ?
Rodreougs ?
I would expect Orford and Potts to effectively replace Rodriguez and Irving next season. You can’t really have someone on the wages Rodriguez is on not appearing in the squad. A very poor signing for us that one, with a bit of luck we can send him back to La Liga on loan next season…probably still be paying a chunk of his salary though.