Graham Potter

[stubbo]

https://www.whufc.com/news/graham-potte ... head-coach

​​​​​​In the past he's favoured a 3-4-3 formation...hard to see how we can do that currently with only 3 senior CBs, one of whom is injured. He's also played wingers (Solly March as an example) in the wing back roles.

Typically when a 3-4-3 gets announced on a match day the manager is immediately described as being too negative, too cautious etc. I guess it depends on the composition of the 4.

He's given young players chances...hopefully that continues at West Ham.

Welcome Graham.

 

[southbankbornnbred]

Also, it's a tough gig to take on - as somebody on here (Trunds?) pointed out earlier: they're still facing potential further action over their finances.

All that stuff about how they treated the interest on the ground loan sounds precarious. Would you want to walk into that?

[southbankbornnbred]

Dyche sacked from Everton. Looks like we for once did this right with getting our man in pronto before that job opened up.

I guess you have to say well done to our lot for getting in there first.

 

 

The new owners on Merseyside have had their eye on Sergio Conceicao since they took over. They also like the look of Terzic (as we did). But the Portuguese looks like their preferred bloke.

I know he seems to gravitate towards a relegation scrap, but I think it's a bit harsh on Dyche. There has been so much going on off the pitch at Everton that the manager has been a bit of an afterthought for two years.

[twoleftfeet]

Dyche sacked from Everton. Looks like we for once did this right with getting our man in pronto before that job opened up.

I guess you have to say well done to our lot for getting in there first.





Although i bet Sullivan is thinking 'Typical- if i'd just held on 24 hours I could have got Dyche....'

They’ll get Moyes in on a short term contract.

[El Scorchio]

Dyche sacked from Everton. Looks like we for once did this right with getting our man in pronto before that job opened up.

I guess you have to say well done to our lot for getting in there first.





Although i bet Sullivan is thinking 'Typical- if i'd just held on 24 hours I could have got Dyche....'

[mallard]

Agree, I feel slightly more optimistic about Villa in the Cup than I did last week

[Nutsin]

I’m feeling a little more optimistic with this appointment, I actually think he could be good for us. Time will tell, I’ll reserve my judgement until the end of the season.

i would love to see a center half brought in this January though.

Looking forward to the Villa game now.

Onward and upward!

COYI’s

 

[Keep dreaming]

Very encouraging conference today.
Hopefully a perfect fit for the Hammers.

[El Scorchio]

If Potter can get a tune consistently out of kudus and Paqueta we will already be in a far better place. If he can get a positive clear strategy and means of playing and moving the ball forward similar to Brighton, I think it could be quite exciting. Players interchanging, pushing on and creating mismatches and overloads will make us look night and day compared to the slow laborious stuff we've been looking at. Even if especially at first we sit fairly deep to shore up the back but are able to move forward quickly and effectively with the ball and in numbers with a plan rather than hoof it at bowen and hope he beats his man, then we should at least be more clinical and incisive.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if he leans on Soucek quite a lot at least at first, just for his non stop running and off the ball workrate.

[stubbo-admin]

Interesting that he ducked the question about working with Steidten in today's presser...didn't even say something generic about their relationship but completely ignored it and started talking about his backroom team!

More changes to come maybe?!

[Lee Trundle]

Even if Kudus didn't fall out with Lopetegui, the fact that such a highly valued player has gone downhill so much this season would have been seen as a very good reason to sack the manager. Same goes for Paqueta, although that may not much matter, depending on whether he gets banned. Sullivan would be looking at those two as assets for financing future transfers so any lowering of their value won't be tolerated for long.

Classic Sullivan.

Going for the cheap option has cost us more in the long run.

[Jean-Luc Paul Goddard]

Even if Kudus didn't fall out with Lopetegui, the fact that such a highly valued player has gone downhill so much this season would have been seen as a very good reason to sack the manager. Same goes for Paqueta, although that may not much matter, depending on whether he gets banned. Sullivan would be looking at those two as assets for financing future transfers so any lowering of their value won't be tolerated for long.

[Lee Trundle]

Kudus might have played a major role in getting Lopetegui the sack also.

I reckon he was one of the (many) players he fell out with.

[southbankbornnbred]

Stiedten getting us Kudus makes him a hero in my book. I’ll trust him on Guilherme as a better alternative to Irvine at the very least.

Fair point - getting us Kudus was a coup. That's in his plus column.

[Gank]

Stiedten getting us Kudus makes him a hero in my book. I’ll trust him on Guilherme as a better alternative to Irvine at the very least.

[southbankbornnbred]

"Source disagrees with other source about Arteta"

Hold the back page.

"Manager says he's great, despite defeats"

Hold the back page.

"Ex-chairman not getting enough headlines - says controversial thing on Talksport: stupid drunk host agrees"

Hold the back page.

[Lee Trundle]

He's also not a very good journalist if he thinks we've only qualified for Europe once in 11 years, which he told 5live.

[El Scorchio]

The only thing I'll point out is that it wasn't me who made the Caicedo comparison - I think it was Jean-Luc Paul Goddard (trust Sarge!). I agree that I think it's not a great comparison.

Likewise, I don't judge Steidten on the LG deal alone. I think he has a lot of other things he needs to fully explain. Can't say I've been too impressed with him thus far. I'm not seeing many pearls from the so-called pearl diver! I think that whole Chairman-Tech Director-Manager relationship needs work. It seems too loose and disjointed at the moment - with too much room for un-cordinated decisions to get made. Steidten has fallen out with both managers so far, and it's not clear who has been responsible for certain purchases etc.

Early days, but clearly we need to work (as a club) on the tech director's role and responsibilities.

 

I only brought up Caicedo when discussing what might be Steidten's remit from Sullivan. Can you not picture the £ signs in Sullivan's eyes when he saw all that luvverly profit and fancied a bit of that himself? You can bet your arse that Sullivan would have vetoed the Guilherme deal if he didn't think it was worth a punt. Anyway, all that has nothing to do with how he's been handled since then, but surely the manager had a big say on whether to loan him out or keep him in the 1st team squad.

Personally I always thought Steidten's reputation from Leverkusen was well overplayed, seeing as he was behind both a sporting director and a Director of Football there and was basically what in old money would simply be called the head scout, but it's very hard to know for sure how much to blame him for the current state of affairs at this club. How much influence does Sullivan still have on proceedings? How much input has he had to take from the head coach? Who knows? I've no problem with getting rid of him but the worry is that Sullivan decides to do without altogether and tries to take over the reins again.

 

 

Tat's it- Sullivans greedy little eyes will have lit up seeing the metrics and ROI for the MC and probably Mac Allister and cucurella deals as well. So no doubt he wants a piece of that pie, but I'd question if he has the actual bottle or patience to make the outlay and wait for them to come good before panicking and shutting down the process and reverting to type and calling his mates to buy a journeyman player with some immediate impact and absolutely no resell value.

[southbankbornnbred]

It's nothing about being revisionist as it was a straightforward question posed yesterday when asking people whether it was justified to sack him and virtually everyone that answered said yes. Then when it gets held up against someone else, the goalposts change. That also goes beyond WHO in the wider debate.

 

The trouble is you're essentially saying "are we in recession, should we change the government". 

It's much more nuanced than "how many points after how many games", which I'm sure you know anyway. But you've invented a single deciding criteria, ignored the others, and then are using that to try and prove a point.

If you want someone who agrees with you, suggest calling this guy:

https://x.com/GuillemBalague?t=0TtsbkML ... 0Heuw&s=09

Guillem Balague is incredibly butt hurt over him getting the sack.  He's a full on idiot to say he doesn't know where we've got this impression we should be finishing in the European places.

Why shouldn't we expect to finish there or therebouts with what we've spent, where we play and what we've recently just won?

Bill Bellend is more of a PR guy than a journalist these days. In it for himself, as much as anything.

I'm sure I'll upset a few with this, but sports hacks are not very good on the whole. They're generally spoon-fed warm diarrhoea by their matey and gossipy sources. That world is not Watergate.

[southbankbornnbred]

The only thing I'll point out is that it wasn't me who made the Caicedo comparison - I think it was Jean-Luc Paul Goddard (trust Sarge!). I agree that I think it's not a great comparison.

Likewise, I don't judge Steidten on the LG deal alone. I think he has a lot of other things he needs to fully explain. Can't say I've been too impressed with him thus far. I'm not seeing many pearls from the so-called pearl diver! I think that whole Chairman-Tech Director-Manager relationship needs work. It seems too loose and disjointed at the moment - with too much room for un-cordinated decisions to get made. Steidten has fallen out with both managers so far, and it's not clear who has been responsible for certain purchases etc.

Early days, but clearly we need to work (as a club) on the tech director's role and responsibilities.

 

I only brought up Caicedo when discussing what might be Steidten's remit from Sullivan. Can you not picture the £ signs in Sullivan's eyes when he saw all that luvverly profit and fancied a bit of that himself? You can bet your arse that Sullivan would have vetoed the Guilherme deal if he didn't think it was worth a punt. Anyway, all that has nothing to do with how he's been handled since then, but surely the manager had a big say on whether to loan him out or keep him in the 1st team squad.

Personally I always thought Steidten's reputation from Leverkusen was well overplayed, seeing as he was behind both a sporting director and a Director of Football there and was basically what in old money would simply be called the head scout, but it's very hard to know for sure how much to blame him for the current state of affairs at this club. How much influence does Sullivan still have on proceedings? How much input has he had to take from the head coach? Who knows? I've no problem with getting rid of him but the worry is that Sullivan decides to do without altogether and tries to take over the reins again.

 

 

No worries, JLPG, it wasn't a criticism. This is why I like WHO: underneath all of the cunting and threats, there are many good posters who know their stuff and it is good to read. West Ham fans do know their football. Sometimes they just argue with each other because they know their stuff!

[Lee Trundle]

It's nothing about being revisionist as it was a straightforward question posed yesterday when asking people whether it was justified to sack him and virtually everyone that answered said yes. Then when it gets held up against someone else, the goalposts change. That also goes beyond WHO in the wider debate.

 

The trouble is you're essentially saying "are we in recession, should we change the government". 

It's much more nuanced than "how many points after how many games", which I'm sure you know anyway. But you've invented a single deciding criteria, ignored the others, and then are using that to try and prove a point.

If you want someone who agrees with you, suggest calling this guy:

https://x.com/GuillemBalague?t=0TtsbkML ... 0Heuw&s=09

Guillem Balague is incredibly butt hurt over him getting the sack.  He's a full on idiot to say he doesn't know where we've got this impression we should be finishing in the European places.

Why shouldn't we expect to finish there or therebouts with what we've spent, where we play and what we've recently just won?

[Jean-Luc Paul Goddard]

The only thing I'll point out is that it wasn't me who made the Caicedo comparison - I think it was Jean-Luc Paul Goddard (trust Sarge!). I agree that I think it's not a great comparison.

Likewise, I don't judge Steidten on the LG deal alone. I think he has a lot of other things he needs to fully explain. Can't say I've been too impressed with him thus far. I'm not seeing many pearls from the so-called pearl diver! I think that whole Chairman-Tech Director-Manager relationship needs work. It seems too loose and disjointed at the moment - with too much room for un-cordinated decisions to get made. Steidten has fallen out with both managers so far, and it's not clear who has been responsible for certain purchases etc.

Early days, but clearly we need to work (as a club) on the tech director's role and responsibilities.

 

 

I only brought up Caicedo when discussing what might be Steidten's remit from Sullivan. Can you not picture the £ signs in Sullivan's eyes when he saw all that luvverly profit and fancied a bit of that himself? You can bet your arse that Sullivan would have vetoed the Guilherme deal if he didn't think it was worth a punt. Anyway, all that has nothing to do with how he's been handled since then, but surely the manager had a big say on whether to loan him out or keep him in the 1st team squad.

Personally I always thought Steidten's reputation from Leverkusen was well overplayed, seeing as he was behind both a sporting director and a Director of Football there and was basically what in old money would simply be called the head scout, but it's very hard to know for sure how much to blame him for the current state of affairs at this club. How much influence does Sullivan still have on proceedings? How much input has he had to take from the head coach? Who knows? I've no problem with getting rid of him but the worry is that Sullivan decides to do without altogether and tries to take over the reins again.

[Sir Alf]

We have to remember that the enormous thing in Potter’s favour and a reason why we can perhaps be hopeful is that Sullivan does not rate him.  

[El Scorchio]

But the big difference with Brighton and Caicedo, for example, is that when they bought him they immediately loaned him out to a top-tier Belgian side and he played first-team, top-tier games in a decent European league. He was ready when they signed him. Once he got back, he went straight into first-team football at Brighton.

"The future" is great - nothing against signing players for the future. But it's also conveniently ethereal for people who don't know what they're doing. It can be the "jam tomorrow" of the sporting world world. Savio Nsereko was "one for the future".

The questions for Steidten - who is paid a lot of money to do this - are "when in the future, what's his development path and show me how you/we are ensuring he gets there?"

I really hope you're right. Nothing against the kid at all - and let's all hope he goes on to be a star. I'd like nothing more than that. Maybe the club needs to loan him out in this window, so they can gauge where he's at in terms of (which level) first-team football. At the moment, it's all a big mystery.







 

 

Sure, but there are also some key differences. Caicedo was 2 years older and they paid twice as much for him (as far as I can see, so he was a huge risky investment for Brighton at the time) than we have for this kid, and he's gone on to be the absolute biggest success imaginble in terms of his play for them and the transfer fee they recouped rather than the norm for these sorts of moves. So it's not really a fair comparison. Could we have sent LG on loan? Maybe. Although 17 is young and that would be a manager decision rather than TS? Again Savio seems an unfair comparison because that deal was clearly as bent as a nine bob note. The bloke who signed him was clearly in cahoots with his relative who happened to be involved with the selling club, right?

You'd assume there is a plan for LG's development as there's no way old deep pockets would have signed off that much money without the spanish inquisition for TS alongside it. It is a big mystery at the moment and I won't disagree we are very much living in hope rather then certainty that he turns out to be a player, but the whole point of me bringing it up was that we have to wait and simply can't judge that transfer now. If he turns out to be shit, sure I'll hold my hands up and agree it was poor judgement. But you can't be judge jury and executioner to TS on this deal. That's minority report territory. However if we get nothing out of Fullkrug, then absolutely fill yer boots on that one!

 

All fair points, Scorch, even if I disagree with some of them.

The only thing I'll point out is that it wasn't me who made the Caicedo comparison - I think it was Jean-Luc Paul Goddard (trust Sarge!). I agree that I think it's not a great comparison.

Likewise, I don't judge Steidten on the LG deal alone. I think he has a lot of other things he needs to fully explain. Can't say I've been too impressed with him thus far. I'm not seeing many pearls from the so-called pearl diver! I think that whole Chairman-Tech Director-Manager relationship needs work. It seems too loose and disjointed at the moment - with too much room for un-cordinated decisions to get made. Steidten has fallen out with both managers so far, and it's not clear who has been responsible for certain purchases etc.

Early days, but clearly we need to work (as a club) on the tech director's role and responsibilities.

 

 

Yeah that's totally fair and actually it's good to just have a discussion and debate without immediately calling each other cunts
Fair play if MC wasn't your comparison!
But yes undoubtedly some of his other signings are a touch questionable. I mean I like Fullkrug as a player but it's been a big disappointment thus far. I am really hoping that with one of the corners of a triangle clearly all puling against each other gone (JL) that it's now just a straight tug of war between Potter AND Stiedten vs the meddling owner. If he just lets them get on with the jobs they are emplyed to do and doesn't stick his fingers in, then you'd hope something more holistic will become clear. While its true he's not got on with either manager so far, but one was there when he joined and clearly didn't want HIM there, and the other was clearly hired against his wishes. And I hear you about it being murky as to who signed who, but I think Sullivan likes it like that so he can pull his 'Oh I wanted that one' at any successful player while pulling his trusty 'I didnt want him but the others talked me into it' poor old man routine for any who are not a sucess.

Anyway I'm not meaning to sound like a TS shill and I agree there are questions that need to be answered but the owner needs to empower him to do his job and make it clear who's responsibility everything is, rather than constantly cutting his nuts off. For instance we know Sullivan kaiboshed Duran.

[Massive Attack]

The rest of Potters backroom staff and confirming we're keeping the Goalkeeper Coach:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/talkspor ... stoke/amp/

[El Scorchio]

It's nothing about being revisionist as it was a straightforward question posed yesterday when asking people whether it was justified to sack him and virtually everyone that answered said yes. Then when it gets held up against someone else, the goalposts change. 

 

The goalposts aren't changing though. Ask almost anyone whether Moyes should have been sacked too at that point and it's an overwhelming yes. 

 

It definitely wasn't an overwhelming yes. And as I say it goes beyond just here and other forums, the Media was also riddled with typical careful what you wish for bollocks. 

 

 

Again, the media isn't us. We were all pushing back on that silly media narrative as well. It's been moaned about ad infinitum, how shitty and patronising it is. There's no point in having a go at people in here about what the media said. We aren't in control of that. From what I've seen the media in general think we've been harsh on JL, just not as resoundingly as they were about Moyes.

And it was pretty much an overwhelming yes, I can only think of 2-3 (albeit very vocal) posters who were plainly Moyes in since the world cup in 2022. Almost everyone else was get him out now, or at the least with grave doubts over his capability to take us forward.