In Paco Jemez, West Ham United have not merely added a highly-experienced tactician to Nuno Espirito Santo’s Premier League coaching staff.
They have added a highly-experienced tactician who briefly had Rayo Vallecano competing with Europe’s A-list clubs despite boasting a budget a mere fraction of the size of your Barcelonas, Manchester Citys, Paris Saint-Germains and Bayern Munichs.
At one point, during his thrilling four-year spell at Rayo, the cash-strapped La Liga minnows were averaging the fourth-highest possession statistics in all of Europe’s major leagues.
Only behind, as you might have guessed, Barcelona, Man City, PSG and Bayern Munich.
Admired by Luis Enrique and loved by Pep Guardiola… 🇪🇸
What do YOU think about West Ham hiring Paco Jemez?
Unsurprisingly, given that he turned an unfashionable Rayo outfit into one of the most free-flowing, ambitious sides on the continent, Pep Guardiola is a huge Paco Jemez admirer. He even indicated, in the 2014 book Pep Confidential, that Jemez was one of only two coaches in Europe who shared Guardiola’s fierce commitment to those ‘Cruyffian’ ideals.
Now, Nuno Espirito Santo believes West Ham will benefit from Paco Jemez’s ‘ideas’ and ‘energy’.
In Mateus Fernandes, Jarrod Bowen, Crysencio Summerville, Pablo Felipe and Taty Castellanos – not to mention Lucas Paqueta, for the time being – West Ham United is also home to many potential game-changers whose full potential is yet to be truly harnessed by the rather pragmatic, safety-first man in the dugout.
There are, though, reasons to believe that Freddie Potts could be one of – if not the – biggest beneficiaries of Jemez’s arrival.
What Paco Jemez hire could mean for Freddie Potts at West Ham United
As we touched on above, Jemez’s Rayo Vallecano side produced possession statistics beyond all but the very best ball-playing sides Europe has to offer. Even Real Madrid, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund and the Italian giants could not keep up for a period in the mid-2010s.
In 2013, Rayo famously ended Barcelona’s run of 316 successive matches in which they had more possession than their opponents.
So although goal-poacher Alberto Bueno, ball-playing centre-half Alejandro Galvez and wildcard playmaker Jonathan Viera were among Jemez’s standout performers in those heady days, arguably nobody epitomised his high-pressing, death-by-a-thousand-passes dominance better than Roberto Trashorras.
In successive La Liga campaigns, from 2014 to 2016, Trashorras attempted the most passes of any other player in the division.
And remember, these were the days of Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta.
“[Jemez] knew my strengths, above all with the ball,” La Masia graduate Trashorras told the official Barcelona website in 2015. “He told me that he wanted me to be important, but that I would have to work defensively and tactically to [provide] pressure up the pitch and be intense.
“He asked for a little more from me and I think I have given it to him. I feel in the best form of my career, individually and as a team.
“We [at Rayo] look to control the game and defend with the ball. It’s clear we have our limitations. Nevertheless, being a small club doesn’t stop you trying to play good football.”
Potts can get so much better at the London Stadium
Now, it remains to be seen how much influence Paco Jemez will actually have on Nuno’s approach. But it may be telling that, of all the potential assistant coach hires he could have considered, Nuno opted for a man once so renowned for his ability to create domineering, pro-active teams greater than the sum of their parts.
West Ham have been largely ponderous in possession of late. In fact, their possession average has dropped from 49 per cent under Graham Potter to 41 per cent under Nuno.
And Potts, despite often operating as the deepest of their midfielders, actually averages fewer than 30 passes per game. A tally no fewer than ten of his teammates can better.
Yet, smooth and calm with the ball at his feet and an aggressive, energetic operator without it, young Potts may be player Jemez is most excited to get his claws stuck into.
The feeling is that West Ham, and Nuno, have only scratched the surface of Potts’ potential so far. On paper, the 22-year-old possesses both the composure and the intelligence to become the metronome at the heart of the pitch, while also offering the tough-tackling bravado to lead the press like Trashorras used to all those years ago in Vallecas.
Expect a lot more of West Ham’s play to go through Potts from here on in. Less long balls out of defence into the channels, and more swashbuckling moves through the thirds.
“[In football, sometimes] you find that person who is capable of understanding you, who is capable of trusting you, who is capable of bringing out all your virtues and minimising your defects or polishing them. In this case, it was Paco,” Trashorras said on the Non Vale Furar YouTube channel recently.
“The idea he had fit me like a glove.
“In fact, in the first talks [between us] he said it; [My role involved] having to press so high, having to have so much of the ball. I enjoyed it to the fullest.
“He always told me;, ‘With the ball, I want you to use all your talent. But without the ball, you always have to be well-positioned’.”
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