Graham Potter appointed new Brighton and Hove Albion Head Coach
Brighton and Hove Albion have appointed Graham Potter as their new Head Coach on a four year deal.
A week after controversially sacking Chris Hughton, Tony Bloom has secured his number one managerial target after agreeing to pay £3m to Championship side Swansea City to activate Potter’s release clause.
He brings with him his long-time assistant Billy Reid and coach Bjorn Hamberg. Most interestingly of all, Potter’s recruitment expert Kyle Macauley has also followed from the Liberty Stadium and will become assistant to Paul Winstanley.
Given that Hughton paid the price for a disappointing second half of the season with his job, many of us suspected that Winstanley could follow after a disastrous summer transfer window in which over £50m was spent but only one player in Bernardo became a first team regular.
Winstanley however somehow keeps his job. Both he and Potter will report to Technical Director Dan Ashworth, with Potter’s job title of Head Coach as opposed to manager indicating that all the power now lies with Ashworth on the football side of things.
Whilst many Albion supporters will be decrying the appointment of a man who has only one season of managerial experience in England under his belt, it’s actually a return to form for Bloom. His previous appointments saw Gus Poyet handed his first ever role as a number one, Oscar Garcia parachuted in with no experience of English football and Sami Hyypia handed his first – and only – job in this country.
Bloom has always gone for young managers with something to prove. Hughton was very much the outlier, probably because a Championship relegation battle wasn’t the time to be throwing an inexperienced coach in at the deep end.
Hyypia aside, most of Bloom’s gambles have paid off. Poyet revolutionised the club. Garcia defied all expectations by leading a very average squad – Leonardo Ulloa aside – into the top six. There is plenty to suggest that the appointment of Potter could prove to be as successful, providing he is given the time needed to implement his style and philosophy and update an aging squad.
In his first managerial role, he led Swedish club Östersunds from the fourth tier to fifth place in the top division and their first ever Swedish Cup. As a result, they qualified for the Europa League where they competed with and defeated some of the biggest clubs in Europe, beating PAOK, Galatasary, Hertha Berlin and Arsenal and drawing with Atheltic Bilbao.
It was that victory over Arsenal at the Emirates that catapulted Potter into the limelight and four months later he was appointed boss at the Liberty Stadium following Swansea’s relegation from the Premier League.
Despite being handed a severely reduced budget and having the majority of his best players sold, Potter managed to lead Swansea to 10th place in the Championship playing stylish, attacking football.
He did it by promoting and trusting in a number of academy graduates, improving them as players markedly across the course of the season to the point where Daniel James is wanted by Manchester United and Oliver McBurnie has come from reserve team player to scorer of 22 goals in a season.
All that makes it fairly obvious as to why Potter appeals to Bloom. This is a manager who will be happy to put his faith in youth – according to the Premier League 2 standings, we have the third best development side in the country – and who delivers results on a budget.
He plays attacking football which is in stark contrast to some of the dour stuff Hughton served up towards the end and he gets the best out of players who may have previously under performed. We’re looking at Jurgen Locadia and Alireza Jahanbakhsh here.
Appointing Potter is a gamble, there’s no doubt about that. It might take time for him stamp his mark and lay out his vision for the Albion, and in the cut throat world of the Premier League that isn’t a commodity many clubs are willing to afford.
Will we be any different? Who knows. On paper, it looks a promising decision but until we’ve played half a season, we won’t know if this is a decision that Bloom has got right.
Potter needs to be backed in the transfer market to freshen up a side that had gone dangerously stale in the second half of the season, reduce the average age from being the third oldest squad in the Premier League and potentially tackle a rumoured drinking culture among certain members of the team. A more positive approach to games, particularly away from home wouldn’t go amiss either.
It’s a difficult job, there’s no getting away from that. But whatever the outcome and whatever the doubts, Potter deserves our support. Let’s hope this is the start of something magical.
(Sorry, we nearly managed to get through this whole article without a reference to magic or Harry Potter).
