Graham Potter has a seriously tough task on his hands if he is to return West Ham United to their former glories.
West Ham decided to part ways with Julen Lopetegui in early January (rightly so), and Graham Potter was brought into the London Stadium to replace the hapless Spaniard.
Graham Potter has made some questionable decisions since moving to West Ham, but in fairness to hm, he’s clearly trying to find out which players he can and can’t trust.
The Hammers head coach has improved the way that his team defend as a unit, so that’s obviously a major positive.
However, moving forward, we need to see much more from his side, and it seems like he won’t accept anything less than that.
West Ham fans needed to see Graham Potter’s nasty side
One of the main criticisms of Potter amongst the West Ham fans is that he is ‘too nice’.
In elite level sport, those who succeed are usually ruthless in the way that they reach the top.
Potter was sacked from Chelsea because of the fact that he was ‘too nice’ remember (Times).
When you’re a Premier League manager, you need to command respect from your players.
The good news is that the penny seems to have finally dropped for Potter.
There will be no more mediocrity tolerated at the London Stadium, as the Hammers boss laid the gauntlet down to his players, as quoted by Sky Sports:
“You can’t play for West Ham and throw games away! It’s impossible. We want to control games and dominate games through attacking football, and we are far from that. We have to acknowledge we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ll need to carry on improving daily, and then see how we can improve the team in the next transfer window, and keep taking steps, but with the ambition I have for this football club, we are some way off from where that is.
“We haven’t managed to do it as much as we’d have liked and at every club there is a window of opportunity that you can look to adjust the squad. I’m really excited about what we can achieve here. Results aren’t as good as we’d like and if there’s criticism, you have to accept it. That’s the life of a professional, the life of a Premier League player. You’re always playing to prove yourself, to be on the journey and take the next steps. Clearly we want to take the right decisions in terms of going forward.“
Finally, a bit of ruthlessness from Potter – that’s exactly what the Hammers fans needed to hear.
That message from Potter is a clear attempt to make all of his players realise that nobody at West Ham is untouchable.
Graham Potter’s obsession with West Ham player will anger Hammers fans
The next step for Potter, after having laid down the gauntlet to his underperforming players, will be to start getting his team selections spot on from the start.
The fact that he keeps starting Konstantinos Mavropanos is utterly bizarre, and he will find out the hard way how tough Premier League football management really is if he continues to do so.
Graham Potter has rubbed the West Ham fans up the wrong way with his obsession with the Greek centre-back.
He’s a disaster waiting to happen every single time he takes to the pitch.
And if Graham Potter is to make genuine progress with West Ham, he needs to start culling players like Mavropanos from his squad.
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