The Daily Telegraph - 01.08.2019

Sport Football

‘We want to entertain but we’re in

the results business. I’m not naive’

New Brighton manager

Graham Potter wants his

team to attack more and

silence the pessimists

P

eople say they want a

meritocracy and

chances for English

coaches, but when

Graham Potter steps

into the Premier League

some sceptics question his right to

be there and make him 8-1 third-

favourite to be the next top-flight

manager sacked.

Potter arrives from the real

world of the 92-club pyramid and

successful spells at Ostersunds in

Sweden and Swansea City, from

where Brighton & Hove Albion

hired him to replace Chris

Hughton, but clearly has some

convincing to do with bookmakers.

It could hardly be otherwise for

a coach making his top-tier debut

with a club who narrowly avoided

relegation in May, yet there is

nothing in Potter’s work to suggest

calamity awaits a side who were in

trouble anyway when the 2018-19

season ended.

The reflexive pessimism reflects

the Premier League’s obsession

with “big-name” hires. Brighton’s

gamble of course was to abandon

Hughton’s organisational skills in

favour of a more “adventurous”

approach with a manager who had

been on the radar of Dan

Ashworth, the Football

Association’s former director of

elite development and now the

Brighton technical director.

Modesty and self-assurance are

two of Potter’s obvious attributes.

He also knows he has joined a club

who came a long way quickly. He

‘Football

players

are

human

beings

first and

my job is

to help

them get

better’

says he found “a really good club,

good people here, a really positive

foundation. Two years of staying in

the Premier League and the

promotion – a good job that Chris

did. The players have been

open-minded and receptive to a

new voice and a different voice. A

hard-working bunch of players, I

would say.”

Potter played for 11 clubs the

length and breadth of England,

worked in football development at

Hull and Leeds universities and

earned a masters degree in

leadership and emotional

intelligence, then raised

Ostersunds from the fourth-tier of

Swedish football to knock

Galatasaray out of the Europa

League and beat Arsenal in

London last year.

A one-year stay at Swansea with

his regular team of Billy Reid

(assistant) and Kyle Macauley

earned favourable reviews for the

team’s slick style of play and placed

him in the frame for Hughton’s job.

Try as you might to scare him

with the prospect of Manchester

City and Liverpool walking

through his door, Potter is secure

in himself and sure of his body of

work without denying that he is in

a new world now.

He says: “I suppose it’s 14 years

of experience [since he stopped

playing], 14 years of making

mistakes, 14 years of failing and

going again, failing and going

again – just like normal.

“My career has been perfect for

me, personally. I wouldn’t say it

was perfect for everybody. I

needed to learn to be a coach

initially. I think if I’d gone into

professional football when I

stopped playing when I was

30-years-old I’d have failed

because I’d have made too many

mistakes because I had no real idea

at that time.”

But a squad who survived by

two points and scored 35 times in

38 games needed revamping and

Potter will be under pressure

to draw more from

expensive recent

signings such as Jurgen

Locadia, Alireza

Jahanbakhsh and Jose

Izquierdo, assuming they

all stay.

Anthony Knockaert,

one of the heroes of

Brighton’s promotion

push in 2017, has

moved to

Fulham and

there is

concern that

Leicester will

pursue Lewis

Dunk to

replace

Harry

Maguire

(hence

reports of a

£20 million bid

for the Bristol City

centre-back Adam

Webster). Glenn Murray, the No 1

striker, will be 36 in September.

Five under-23s have been

loaned out, and the club’s owner,

Tony Bloom, wants more from the

academy.

Abolishing comfort zones and

improving players is one of Potter’s

strengths. He says: “They’re

human beings before they’re

footballers and it’s important to

understand – how can I help them?

“What do they need? How can

they feel part of this? How can they

feel they’re improving in their

career, because my job is to help

them get better, play better

football, earn a better contract,

whatever it is. That was my

rationale when I started out, not to

win football games.”

Brighton’s hardcore of Mathew

Ryan, Dunk, Shane Duffy, Dale

Stephens and Murray would not

relish a third season of struggle so

Potter needs to take the pressure

off them either through

recruitment or attacking more.

“It’s that balance between attack

and defence we’ve got to get right,”

he says. “Something has been very

right here for us to still be a

Premier League club. That’s not so

easy to do. My job is to take that

foundation and try to improve and

build.

“You’ve got those guys who’ve

played a big role at the club and it’s

our job to help them and improve

them. That’s the job of the coach.

“They’ve been great, with their

attitudes. You can see their quality,

you can see why they’ve played

such a big role at the club.”

He is proud of his reputation for

positivity: “We’ve got to this point

by trying to build our attacks,

control our attacks. We’ve wanted

to go into games with a belief that

we can win.

“It’s important that we can play

with that freedom. I don’t think I’d

have got to this point if it was all on

the back of one thing.

“To knock Galatasaray out in a

two-legged game you have to be

able to defend. That’s the reality.

“All I can promise is I’ll do my

very best. I’ll try as hard as I

can. We want our teams to be

able to entertain the supporters

• they’re such an important
  part of the industry, sometimes
  forgotten a bit. At the Amex
  they’ll be very important
  for us. So we’ll try
  and entertain. At
  the same time I
  know we’re in the
  results business.
  I’m not naive.”
  One of his
  biggest aims
  conveys a
  certain nobility:
  “Try to be the
  person I’ve been
  all my career.”

Positive: Graham

Potter is optimistic CHRISTOPHER PLEDGER FOR THE TELEGRAPH

INTERVIEW

By Paul Hayward

CHIEF SPORTS WRITER

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6 *** Thursday 1 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph

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