Why Graham Potter is in the right place at the right time

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“I am very happy here, at one of the best-run clubs in the Premier League, with a fantastic owner, chairman, CEO, sports director. (There are) great people at the club.”

This is what Brighton and Hove Albion head coach Graham Potter had to say when it was suggested that he could be in the running to replace Rafa Benitez at Everton early last week.

Whilst optimistic supporters of the Merseyside club will possibly be clinging to the fact that it was not necessarily an outright rejection of the possibility, Potter managed to highlight one of the important distinctions between his current employers and many of the clubs he has been linked with taking over at in the past year or so.

Establishing and maintaining a coherent footballing structure is not a particularly exhilarating process, nor is it something that can inspire the same emotion as a brilliant goal, an entertaining game or a satisfying victory, but it vastly increases the chances of a club being successful in a sustainable manner.

Since British-Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri purchased a controlling stake in Everton in February 2016, it would be fair to say that the club has made decisions in a very different sort of way.

Benitez was the sixth permanent manager at Goodison Park in the six years that Moshiri has been in charge. Although a high level of managerial turnover is not necessarily a sign of a poorly-run football club, the power afforded to both the Spaniard and his predecessor Carlo Ancelotti suggested that Moshiri was willing to allow affairs to be controlled by a high-profile individual rather than an organised collection of decision-makers.

An example of this is how Ancelotti was allowed to sign James Rodriguez on a two-year deal from Real Madrid on a reported salary of £10 million per year. Although the Colombian showed flashes of brilliance in his early weeks in the Premier League, he made only 23 league appearances as he was continually troubled by the injuries that have blighted his career since his emergence as a global superstar during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Even more tellingly, once Benitez replaced Ancelotti in the summer of 2021, Rodriguez was effectively deemed surplus to requirements and was not involved in any of the first five matchday squads of this season before being allowed to move to Al-Rayyan SC in Qatar on a free transfer in September 2021.

It was not only the departure of Rodriguez that typified the power that had been devolved to the former Liverpool manager though. In his 200 days at the club, Everton parted ways with Director of Medical Services Danny Donachie, Head of Recruitment and Development Gretar Steinsson, manager of Scouting Dan Purdy and Director of Football Marcel Brands, all supposedly due to disagreements with the Spaniard.

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With the Toffees once again in search of a new manager after the departure of Benitez, Potter’s name was unsurprisingly suggested as a possible replacement.

His work in maintaining the Seagulls’ place in the top flight whilst also implementing and developing an attractive style of play has meant that even a rival as distinguished as Pep Guardiola was willing to brand the one-cap England under-21 International as the ‘best English manager’ currently operating in the Premier League.

However, the state that Everton currently find themselves in could hardly be any different from the situation Potter is currently in at Brighton, as he was so willing to point out when asked if he could foresee himself departing in the near future.

Even though it appears that more and more top-flight clubs are realising the importance of not only finding a talented coach but also establishing a functioning footballing structure above, around and beneath them, few seem as co-ordinated and well-organised as the one in place at Brighton.

It is always easier to be positive about most facets of a football club when things are going well on the pitch. Brighton are on course for the highest league finish in their history, they play some of the most attractive and entertaining football in the Premier League and they have just remained unbeaten against the Champions of Europe in two games across the space of three weeks as part of a seven-game run without a defeat.

However, the key decision-makers at Brighton have been behind Potter from the moment he decided to make the move to the South Coast from Swansea City in the early summer of 2019.

Seagulls’ Technical Director Dan Ashworth replaced Chris Hughton, an established Premier League manager who had guided Brighton to the top flight for the first time in 34 years and also led them to survival in back-to-back campaigns, with a head coach who had finished 10th in the Championship in his only season in British football.

Ashworth had seen that Potter and his staff should be judged on more than on-field results alone at Swansea, appreciating that their solitary season in South Wales had seen them develop a fluid, attractive playing style whilst promoting and improving young players as the club adjusted to the financial reality of relegation.

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Despite winning only four of his first 13 Premier League matches in charge of Brighton, Potter, along with assistant Billy Reid and first-team coach Bjorn Hamberg, was awarded a contract extension until 2025 in November 2019 due to the immediate impact he had made in the eyes of Owner Tony Bloom, Chief Executive Paul Barber and Ashworth himself.

The club found themselves embroiled in a relegation battle by the following Spring, but Ashworth was steadfast in his belief that the managerial change had been the right decision.

“Graham’s got a new job in a new league with some new players. It’s never easy but I think he has made the transition into Brighton and the Premier League really, really well.

“Performances have been, in the main, good. We are probably all sitting here thinking we maybe should and could have had a few more points but that’s professional sport. You don’t always get what you deserve.

“As a person and a man, I cannot speak highly enough of him. He’s a great guy to work with. We have a good relationship. We don’t agree on everything — no one does — but we’ll have a healthy debate.”

– Brighton technical director Dan Ashworth, speaking in February 2020

The role that Bloom has played in helping Brighton find a permanent home at the 30,000 capacity Amex Stadium and funding promotion from the Championship, as well as survival in the Premier League, cannot be understated, but he is a largely hands-off owner in terms of the day-to-day running of the club, delegating responsibility to former Tottenham Executive Director Barber.

Bloom is in constant communication with both Barber and Ashworth though, ensuring there is continuity throughout the club in terms of decision-making and ensuring an overall philosophy of attempting to climb the league table whilst also operating sustainably is being adhered to.

Even though Ashworth has been heavily linked with a move to Newcastle United to take up a similar position at St James’ Park, the promotion of former Everton and Glasgow Rangers defender David Weir from loan pathway development manager to assistant technical director appears to be an example of the Seagulls’ hierarchy dealing with a problem before it has even fully emerged.

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It is not only at the administrative level that collaboration and delegation is important though.

Last weekend’s 1-1 draw at Leicester showed the importance of the entire coaching team. Potter was forced to isolate after testing positive for COVID-19 on Friday and Reid was absent from the dugout after he too returned a positive test on the day of the game. This meant that it was Hamberg who oversaw another strong Brighton performance from the touchline.

Danny Welbeck’s 82nd-minute header secured the Seagulls a 1-1 draw, extending their unbeaten run, and in the pre-match press conference Reid had explained the current good run of form is by no means down to Potter alone.

“Myself and Graham [Potter] deal with the team. Bruno deals with attacking stuff and Bjorn [Hamberg] the defensive stuff.

“It’s absolutely a collaborative effort.”

The cohesive unit both above and around Brighton’s manager has retained full support for him during brief flirtations with relegation and runs of games in which scoring a goal looked near-on impossible, but also when results have improved, plaudits have rolled in and links to other jobs have been suggested.

This has allowed Potter the freedom to experiment both within games and between them as he continues to evolve the team’s style whilst also finding effective ways to help the Seagulls secure enough Premier League points to establish themselves further up the table.

His decision to start with his two highest goalscorers in Neal Maupay and Leandro Trossard on the bench in the second of the recent meetings with Chelsea, effectively meaning Brighton began the game without the spine of their ‘strongest’ team with Lewis Dunk, Adam Lallana and Yves Bissouma absent, would quite possibly have caused consternation at a club that is not as united behind his footballing vision.

Even though it now appears that it will be Frank Lampard who will be taking the Everton job, Potter’s willingness to champion the work of those around him at the Amex hints that he never really intended to be the man to lead Moshiri’s latest change of direction.

When the next similar-size top-flight managerial position becomes available, the 46-year-old’s name will no doubt be one of the first suggested as a candidate though.

His praise for the structure around him should probably not be interpreted as empty platitudes. The support of Bloom, Barber and Ashworth, combined with the expertise of Reid and Hamberg, have helped Potter become the eighth-longest serving Premier League boss and also allowed him the necessary time to adapt to the demands of the Premier League.

If he is to leave the Amex in the near future, finding an environment with a similar level of security is surely going to be one of his top priorities.

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