Whenever a new manager joins a football club, there’s always a certain degree of leeway afforded to them while they embed their ideas and shape the team in their image.
That’s certainly the case with West Ham boss Graham Potter, who is arguably still in his honeymoon period—albeit with enough games under his belt to start forming fair judgments.
Given it’s still relatively early days, most would agree Potter deserves the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it’s too soon to worry. Perhaps he should be properly judged only once he’s had a summer transfer window to bring in his own players and a full pre-season to prepare.
Unfortunately for Potter, there are other managers who have arrived at their clubs at similar times and hit their stride much quicker.
One of my main concerns is how poorly Jarrod Bowen has been utilised. West Ham’s best player and club captain doesn’t appear to have a natural home in Potter’s preferred 3-4-3 system.
When Bowen is asked to play through the middle as a striker, it doesn’t work—and it was hoped a return to a slightly deeper, wider role would bring the best out of him. That’s exactly what happened against Wolves, but unfortunately, it made little difference to his overall threat.
Yes, there was a driving run and an early dribble that should have ended in a goal for Evan Ferguson—but after that, Bowen barely registered.
Some of the issue may lie in a lack of midfield creativity, but it seems there’s more to it. Against Wolves, Potter changed personnel and formation, yet the end result remained the same: ten shots overall and hardly anything on target.
Bowen is West Ham’s best player but not Potter’s
If Potter is to truly thrive at West Ham, he’ll need to unlock the full potential of Bowen. But the longer he spends on the training ground, the more disjointed and isolated the Hammers skipper seems to become.
There’s a lazy argument that the current squad doesn’t have the tools to supply the attack—but many of these players were alongside Bowen during his most productive spells. Under David Moyes, he didn’t struggle for a supply line. Even under Julen Lopetegui, Bowen was more involved and regularly getting on the scoresheet.
Moyes knew how to supply and deploy Bowen
The truth is, West Ham’s attack under Potter is a puzzle he doesn’t yet seem capable of solving—and that’s in stark contrast to both of his predecessors.
Unless something changes soon, the manager’s inability to get the best from his star man may become a serious sticking point.
The real question is, why isn’t Potter getting the best out of any of our players?
Potter seems to have Bowen hugging the touch line, running up blind alleys. Also a Tuchel tactic it would seem. The current fashion is not to play to a player’s strengths, but rigidly stick to a preferred system. A rubbish concept in my opinion.
He didn’t get good service under Southgate either
Given it’s relatively early days – yet you still go on to write a BS article again rubbishing our club and moaning like a b*tch. It’s getting to the stage where all you do is F’ing moan and whinge. If I could find a way to crash Hughie’s website just to stop you posting I would. You aren’t loyal enough and far too money minded to be a West ham supporter. All your time is spent finding underhand ways to write controversial articles with inaccurate headlines. You have ruined the place that Hughie built….shame in you!
give it a rest drama queen. i read so much crap on here about “negative” articles. has anyone been watching us play. it’s been f**king dire all season. there’s really nothing positive to write about, save for a few youngsters coming on. in fact, most of the negativity is from commenters here. if you want more strawberries and cream, go back home and live with your mum!
And there it is, proved my point for me with the negativity you speak of. And its one of reasons why the support at West Ham is so toxic, you believe the BS written here and then when its criticised, you insult an opinion from someone you know nothing about. Gonzo and C&H write their articles and put themselves in the public domain and accept responsibility for what they write. So if they want to run numerous articles saying how bad West Ham are then that’s up to them, but expect some push back when not everyone agrees with their point of view. If there’s nothing positive to write, then don’t write anything….oh silly me, C&H don’t get paid if they don’t write an article of some sort. And to show just how bad, Martin is now writing articles about Bournemouth players instead of our own! Oh and don’t forget to say hi to your mum for me Bonzo’sBoy!
Bowen has been our best player.