Graham Potter exclusive: 'We need to be more what a West Ham team looks like' | OneFootball

Hammers boss is determined to give supporters the attacking football they crave - but knows it won’t be easy

The pre-season tours are done, the summer sweat of preparation almost complete. Now just the fine tuning before the opening weekend of another Premier League season.

The West Ham players look relaxed in the relative calm before the storm. There are smiles everywhere, from new signings such as Danish goalkeeper Mads Hermansen and veteran Callum Wilson, to Brazilian Lucas Paqueta, now free from the threat of a career-ending ban had he been found guilty by the FA of breaching betting regulations.

It’s easier, of course, to feel happy before the deadly serious work begins for West Ham on Saturday at newly promoted Sunderland.

Yet the atmosphere at the club’s Rush Green training ground, according to the staff who work there, does feel different, more together, more holistic.

Head coach Graham Potter made that a priority following a tough season which began with the appointment of Julen Lopetegui last summer and ended with West Ham finishing 14th with 43 points and the memories of winning a European trophy under David Moyes, increasingly distant.

‘Something was not working’

Potter took over from Lopetegui in January. In his first game in charge, an FA Cup tie at Aston Villa and already without Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio, he lost two more offensive players, Niclas Fullkrug and Crysencio Summerville, to long-term injuries.

From then on it was a struggle and the new boss could be thankful that the three promoted teams - Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton - were fast being cut adrift at the foot of the table.

Potter wants to bring the good times back to West Ham

Getty Images

A fantastic 1-0 win over Arsenal at the Emirates to end the title challengers’ 15-match unbeaten run gave the Hammers fans encouragement about what is possible under Potter — his side carrying by far the greater attacking threat in the first half before soaking up plenty of pressure in the second.

Unfortunately the result proved something of a false dawn and, by the end of the campaign, the only consolation for many fans was that their team had finished above Manchester United and Tottenham.

Potter, whose playing career spanned 11 clubs and one England Under-21 cap, followed by a disparate managerial journey which peaked - and quickly burned - at Chelsea, assessed his priorities.

“If you look at our recent history,” he said, “David Moyes left after having real success at the club and when you make a change after a long time, there are implications. Everybody then has to adapt to a new style which can be challenging, the club invested a lot of money in the team and expectations went high.

“The reality is that when there is a lot of change, when new players come, especially from outside the Premier League, sometimes that reality doesn’t match the expectation level.

“Then, if things don’t go that well, all of a sudden it can be a challenging environment. When you change managers again halfway through the season, it’s not because it’s all going well - rather something’s not working.

“It’s not that, when I came, that I expected people to trust me. You have to earn that trust over time. Until then everyone is trying to work everybody out - players, staff, everyone. In an ideal world, if you have the time, you can build that trust and people believe in each other more - and believe in you. Then we can do things.

Potter’s West Ham start the new season away at Sunderland on Saturday

WHUFC

“It’s something you accept when you come in halfway through a season and it’s part of the challenge. Certainly when you look as a whole, there were a lot of things going on which made it challenging. When I reflect back though, I enjoyed that time.

Fair judgment on Potter’s impact will have to wait for now.

The Hammers boss is relishing his first full season at the club, and emphasises the importance of having a summer of preparation and planning under his belt.

The messaging in camp has been clear from Potter - and he’s been pleased with his players’ response.

“We started this pre-season with a bit of clarity about what type of environment we wanted, what we wanted the day-to-day work to look like at the training ground involving the staff and that went well.

“The players came back in a really good way and again we outlined how we wanted to be, how we wanted to act, how we wanted to connect more as a team because, if you succeed in that you can also connect well with the fans.

“If everyone is connected in the right way, then it can be really powerful but we have to start with ourselves. Yes, it’s pre-season but if it doesn’t go right, you can do damage. I think we have brought the team together.

“The team since I’ve been here has always been competitive, there’s no problem in that - it’s just we needed a bit more from everybody.

“We’ve had two trips away. The first, in Germany was really positive - more training, less games, more emphasis on the culture and the environment.

We had a few days in England and then off the United States for a couple of weeks to play Manchester United, Everton and Bournemouth. That was a slight concern because you can be a little too much together but the players were really good, positive and open. That’s allowed us to carry on trying to improve.

“It feels like we’re in a good place with the obvious caveat that it’s pre-season and the fun starts on Saturday at Sunderland.”

Summer transfer business

It has been a challenging summer in the transfer market for West Ham, who have been unable to spend as freely as they have done in recent years.

Mohammed Kudus has been sold to Spurs and new signings were initially slow to arrive.

One of Potter’s aims was for a smaller, younger squad.

Senegalese wing-back El Hadji Malick Diouf, 20, joined for £19million last month and looks a talent, while Freddie Potts, 21, and George Earthy, 20, have been brought back from successful loan spells in the EFL.

El Hadji Malick Diouf is one of four summer signings at West Ham

Getty Images

Goalkeeper Hermansen, 25, signed last week for £20m and full-back Kyle Walker Peters, 28, and striker Callum Wilson, 33, have joined on free transfers.

“Malick and Mads have been positive signings,” said Potter. “While the young players have been involved pre-season. Callum and Kyle bring experience and quality so I think we’ve done quite well because we did lose a lot of experience at the end of last season.

Paqueta continues to be linked with a move away but Potter has said the Brazilian is “happy and committed”.

As usual, West Ham have been linked with a multitude of players this summer but Potter remains sanguine. “We’re calm either way,” he said. “There are some potential things we could do but my job always is to focus on the ones who are here and help them get better.”

West Ham, affected by constant change last season, lost too many matches, as well as much of their identity.

“We need to make this team more recognisable, what a West Ham team looks like,” said Potter. “West Ham fans want to see attacking football but it’s not always easy to do that. Not all but most teams attack through defence and transition.

“We want to be positive, have an idea of how we want to attack and score while maintaining the defensive balance and stability.”

Trust and honesty

As you would expect from a man who has an Msc in Leadership, Personal and Professional Development, plus a degree in social sciences, Potter believes the right environment is key if he is to bring the good times back to West Ham.

“West Ham is a massive club with a big fan base but also still a family club,” he said. “The biggest thing we have is that collective feeling. If you lose that, it becomes challenging. Everyone’s role is important, everyone contributes to what we’re doing. If we have that we can over-achieve.

Potter’s West Ham finished 14th in the Premier League last season

Getty Images

Potter is seeking to put down foundations that could lead to something lasting. “We should also talk about ambition and we have to be together with that as well,” he said.

“If we go off in different ways, then it won’t work. The players are human beings with ambition so they want to win, get better and they want me to help them — not make things more difficult.

“My way of approaching that is to ask myself, ‘have you created an environment that isn’t about blame and fear but is about responsibility, accountability, standards, trust and honesty?’

“Those things provide a foundation for individual players to improve — or not. In the end, they have to do the work. We create the conditions to help them. If we do that and they feel like they’re improving, that they feel part of something, then hopefully the team will get better.

“It’s man-management. [Football’s] a results business, but it’s also a people business and if you alienate people, if you create an environment where people don’t trust each other, don’t believe in each other, aren’t honest with each other, then you’re a better person than me if you can get them to play football well.”

A tricky start

Newly promoted Sunderland away from home is far from the ideal opening fixture but Potter is positive.

“They’re all tough, that’s how the Premier League is,” he said. “We fully respect the challenge, we know their fans will be completely up for it - riding on the back of promotion and the club have invested a lot in the team.

“It will be a tough game, but we have a lot of experienced players who know the quality of the league. We have to show our quality, enjoy the game and hopefully take the three points.”

A fast start is going to be important, with Chelsea at home the following Friday night and fixtures against Nottingham Forest and Tottenham bookending the international break in September.

The challenging opening exchanges will set the tone for the campaign for better or worse.

Potter will not struggle for perspective, having travelled many managerial miles since he took charge of his first club, the since dissolved Leeds Carnegie in 2008.

“In many ways I haven’t changed much since then,” he said. “I’m still friends with my old school mates and they would tell me pretty quickly if I had changed.

All that experience is sure to be handy as the new campaign dawns — there are plenty of challenges ahead.