Football Daily - In Focus with Graham Potter and Kelly Somers

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

West Ham boss Graham Potter speaks with Kelly Somers after a month in charge at the club. Potter took the West Ham job after nearly two years out of management, following his sacking at Chelsea in April 2023. In this chat he talks about being able to focus on his family for the first time in 12 years, how things ended at Chelsea and where he thinks he can take West Ham.

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. The Football Daily Podcast on BBC Sounds. So, Graham Potter, Premier League manager once again, does it feel good to have that title again? I wouldn't say good. Of course you're always proud of what you've done and proud of the fact that you can get to a place where there's only 20 people in the world that can be a Premier League manager but I don't think about it too much to be honest it's just it's just something that that when you reflect back something that you think about and the fact there's only a couple of English guys as well I heard about that and somebody asked me that the other day that That's a bit strange as well but it just shows how hard it is. That's the reality.

So for you, nearly two years out in the end, did you ever expect to be out for that long? I didn't have any plan to be honest but I knew that when I first left Chelsea I knew that I needed some time and to wait for the right opportunity. It's not easy to find the right opportunity because there's not many of them. I'd had a really positive experience at Brighton and a not so one at Chelsea, so you're trying to find out which is the next step. There's quite a few opportunities abroad, but I just felt that I still had some work to do in the Premier League. At the end of the day it's the destination I think for most coaches in the world. So while you think you've got an opportunity to work there,

I just decided that I'd like to try to have that chance. So there's no real time on it, it was just more wait for the right opportunity. Did there come a point where you started to get itchy feet as such and thought, I think I need to get back in now? I think it was probably when my family started to get itchy feet. Get out the house dad. Get out, we've had enough now. It's been nice but now it's come on. But for you as well in terms of stimulating yourself?

Yeah, there was and I think sometimes then you can make you know, just jumping into the maybe the wrong opportunity. So I had to make sure that the right opportunity was the right opportunity and to wait for it and to go, okay this feels like the best one. It was tough at times because you want to work and I've gone through all my reflection and I've gone through all that pain of dealing with losing your job and all that stuff. So then you want to go out and work but obviously, as I said, there's not many of us in terms of the Premier League so you've got to be patient. What did you get up to? Because when football is your life and it's so intense, all of a sudden you've got all

of that time. I guess you want to keep involved in football, watching football, but also you needed that time away. What did you do? A bit of everything really. I mean, it was so nice to just be able to go on holidays with family. When you want to. Exactly.

Around the kids' school. Because my kids are, you know, they're young, they're nine and 14, so I've sort of missed all that young family growing up bit. Not missed, but you know, when you're a Premier League manager it's not so easy to go at half term and all that stuff I learned to ski so that was something I did because I could go over the kids at February. You only good? I can get down safely-ish I wouldn't say I'm very good but but that was fun. And then you start to, you know, again, like I said,

reflect on the journey and reflect on the 12 years I had from the fourth tier of Swedish football or the ninth tier in English football to the, you know, the last eight of the Champions League. It doesn't, that journey doesn't come for free. It's a lot of sacrifice. It's a lot of work. So, you know, reflect on that. I spent some time in education, around football education, courses, but more just sitting in and observing and being around football people in that way. I tended to stay away from live football because you can get

the games live on TV and different channels, so I managed to do that. And just got into some good habits around the gym and eating well and sleeping well. I'll do that as a manager I bet. Well it's easy to forget that actually that self-care piece, that bit that you need to do to look after yourself is actually really important because no one else will. So it's good to get into those positive habits, so that was good. And then just to keep watching football as much football from different places as possible and do the shopping, take the kids once to school and just be normal because that was quite nice, you know, it's nice just to get out of the bubble. Yeah. Like I said, 12 years, you can end up lacking a bit of perspective almost, just to see the zoom out a bit and see the world for what it is and see football for what it is and

and I think hopefully it makes you a better person, better manager. Did you listen to much Taylor Swift? Yes, allegedly I did, yeah. No, I did. I got into Taylor Swift, I went to the Ears tour twice actually. Wow. I managed to go yeah, so yeah, she's not the only person I listen to, I don't know if people will jump on it now, but yeah, I mean just an amazing show, it was an amazing show. I don't really listen to the music that much but then to see her live and see what the atmosphere was, the atmosphere was incredible. But I guess it does just show you had a little bit more time to just find your interests and maybe find things that you hadn't had time to do when you were a manager and find things out about

yourself. You probably never thought you were going to be a Taylor Swift fan at the Ears Tour twice. No exactly when I was you know a young man I was at Oasis at Main Road and I've moved from there to Taylor Swift at Wembley so that just shows you what life does sometimes. I did loads of really cool stuff. I went to the Falklands, I went down there to do some work with the military so that was really good. So I tried to visit England Mugby, different things with different organisations over in the States, different clubs, different sports organisations. So just try and do lots of varied stuff that's just normal life things as well. It's not the first time that you've had time

kind of away from football. You did it earlier in your career didn't you? When you finished playing you did your masters and then you coached some of the players there. What did that do, taking yourself out of even then the football bubble? Well I think it started me on a decent coaching journey because it was a foundation really I suppose. I'd left, stopped playing football, thinking about what I'm going to do for the rest of my life and started the coaching badges, realised that I needed to learn how to coach, I needed to feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation because coaching didn't come natural to me, it wasn't something that was, no it wasn't something that I think I had to learn it, I had

to be out there on the grass in front of people, speaking in front of people. I think footballers, we do football because it comes naturally easy to us. And then to do something, another skill, whether it's journalism or whether it's coaching, I think you're something you have to practice and practice in the right environment so you can make mistakes and you can learn and you can safely go and progress. So I think that was an important part. I found I got a job in the university sector. So it was outside the professional game, but it was a perfect environment for me to learn, to experiment, to make mistakes, to work out what suits me, what fits me, how do I want to coach, what do I want to do.

You look back on that time and it was an amazing time for me, but a time that I got such a lot from, positive and negative because you like I said you have to make your mistakes, you have to fail and you have to do it in a safe way because in the professional game you can't do it too often. Yeah I also heard you say something about the fact it gave you a little bit of perspective in terms of football at times there's a bit of a fear of failure and a bit of a blame game at times and maybe you realise through working with different people from a different walk of life that

maybe it's not always the best thing in football. You know a lot of my experience was that and I think there's a fine line between you know you want people responsible, you want people accountable, you want to demand, you need high standards, you need to push performance. But I think the tips towards fear and blame, and everyone's in survival mode, and they're worried about making a mistake, and they're worried about an error, then they're not free to be themselves.

And I think from an environment perspective, from a coaching perspective, it's something that I thought that's important to me. Like I said, there's enough stress out there. You guys in the media, the fans, they're everything else. There's enough there to players know what's at stake. I think my job, or the coach's job, my job as I see it is to support that. It's not to be too nice, it's not to be everybody's friend, but it's about making sure the level

of responsibility and accountability is there and not going too far towards blame blaming fear because I think, like I said, that's unhealthy. Vincent Kompany is a Premier League legend. Goal from the Manchester City captain. He'll remember that for years and years and years. And now he's an up-and-coming head coach who's had a meteoric rise from under-elect, promotion and relegation with Burnley to being appointed at one of the biggest clubs in world football. Ryan Munich have confirmed the appointment of Vincent Kompany.

It feels like Kompany is the golden boy in football management right now. And I want to find out why. He's been a trailblazer quite a lot of his life, quite a lot of his career. This is Football Daily. Vincent K Vincent company, the golden boy. Listen on BBC Sounds. The Football Daily podcast on BBC Sounds. What sort of environment and culture are you trying to create here at West Ham? Well, one that is responsible and accountable.

It sounds easy, but I think the first, the foundation is how do we act every day, how do we be as a team, what does our behaviour look like every day in training, how are we trying to improve, what's the foundation for us, so the team has to look a certain way. We want the team to attack well, we want the team to defend well, and that clarity means that people within the team understand what their individual role is.

And then from that, you can make demands. From that, you can make people accountable, and you can help people take responsibility for what they do in the performance. I just always felt that, you know, as as a coach you need to help people improve because players want to get better, they want better contracts or they want more success or win games, that's normal but they need to also feel that they're connected to something to each other. It's tricky in the Premier League

because there's such ambition and there's all the outside stuff that goes with it but if you can somehow bring players together and they're fighting for more than just the the three points, they're fighting for each other, they're fighting for the team, they're fighting for the club, that's the thing we're trying to do. It's felt like even from the early, well your first game where you took over on the Thursday, had a game on Friday, even from then you could kind of see your imprint on this West Ham team. How easy has it been to get your

messages across to these players at such a busy time of the season? Well, as credit goes to the players, I think they were open and honest from the from the start. They've tried their best every day, with everything we've asked them to do, they've tried to do it. They've not been perfect of course, because it's impossible for us to be like that, but the intention has been really good. I think you're right, the games, when they come so thick and fast, you're trying to learn, and every session and every game is more information. You have a picture of them from the outside and you have a picture from, okay what can you do, until you get under the bonnet so to speak and that's what's been valuable those every day and every

training session and every game but it's still the Premier League and it's still the competition is the competition and it's unrelenting and it's demanding so you have to strike that balance between, okay, how can we keep improving? How can we understand that we're quite some way from where we wanna be and to not be too hard on ourselves, to understand where we're at and not on the journey. So we're just balancing all those things.

Have you been able to do anything, like we've seen you do at your previous club, some of the more interesting team-building things and it is clear from talking to you you see these players as people and you want to see them as people have you been able to get to know your players as people and maybe take them out of the football environment yet? No not yet is the honest answer it's more just getting to know them, having a coffee and a chat with them and starting that process. The first week we had three games, so it was literally, okay, how can we prepare for this, how can we prepare for this, how can we prepare for this?

And then try to understand them as both footballers and start to, okay, what do they feel comfortable doing? What's the strengths, what's the weaknesses? What they're worried about? All those things. I think that's a time process that in the end, it's not some magic gimmick. It's not some clever culture program or anything like that. It's time. The more you understand each other, the more good and bad situations you go through together. You build sort of a trust.

You build an understanding of each other. That's where the coaching process, and I know you don't want to be that coach that asks for time, but that ultimately is what it is, it's how you improve. But at the same time, the response from the players has been really, really good and our supporters have been fantastic with us as well, I must say, and that obviously helps. How much time do you think it will take you to get West Ham into Graham Potter's West Ham that you want to see and where you want to be?

Well, it depends on lots of things. It depends on how we can work with the players that we have, because ultimately there's few aspects to it. You have to try and improve the ones that are here for sure. And we have to do that step by step by step. No matter, I could have an idea of where I want the team to be, but the reality could be somewhere different and it's about how you step by step get to that point with the players you have. And then it's about, okay, in every window you want to try and add, you want to try and help the team grow and find the best players that can fit how you want to go going forward.

So and then it's results are the best way to get people on board, the best way to build confidence, the best way to get everything moving in the right way is in theory it's right winning games. You do need some blips in the road as well to just, like I said, build trust, build some resilience. Okay, how do you act when things aren't going well? You need to find out about that because that's important. Have you found out those things already in your first month? Some bits, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, you know, hasn't... Results haven't been perfect, you know, and performances haven't been perfect, and it'd be strange if they were. So again every session, every game, there's positive or negative, there's something to learn from. And I said as much as we're in the game and it's easier for us if we're winning, but sometimes you need some tough times, you need some bad moments just to understand about each other, to build that relationship, to build that trust, to build that trust.

I think it's really important. You joined during the January transfer window which I imagine is incredibly difficult but I wanted to talk to you about a couple of the players that you did bring in. Firstly, Evan Ferguson, someone that you knew from Brighton and I think it's no secret that the West Ham fans have wanted a striker for quite some time. Why did you feel like he was the right fit here? Well we had some criteria that we had to fit and he had to fit into, sorry. I think loan was important for us where we're at as a club. And then, like you say, because of the injuries to Mick and Nicholas, centre-forward was an area where we were a little bit light in.

I think knowing Evan, you know, he's a young player that just wants to play football, wants to help the team. I think he'll fit in really well with the group that we have here, he's ready to help. He needs to build his minutes up and we have to probably be a little bit patient with him to start with, but you know, he knows where the goal is, he can finish really well. And like I said, I think he's the type of character that the team will respond to. James Ward-Prowse coming back as well, that felt like quite a big move from the club too. Why did you decide that this was the best place for him and what he could bring to your

squad? Well again, I think character, personality, training habits every day, the experience he has, the quality he has, I think he's a, you know, can be a really important player for us. Did it go back to the person as well that you bring back? When you talked before about having the right characters, when you talked to anyone about James Ward-Prowse, I said what a great guy he is, was that a big factor? For sure, yeah, exactly. And I think because of where we are on the journey and the start, as I said at the start, how we act every day, how we conduct ourselves, the standards we have every day, I think he

contributes to that in a really, really big way. Helps the rest of the players. There's not the same integration process. He knows all the boys have been here. And then his quality on the pitch, we know what he can bring, so I think he'll add competition in the area of midfield and I'm looking forward to seeing him play. Just two years ago West Ham won a European Cup, can these fans be excited again to watch their team under you?

Yeah, I think so, it's going to take a lot of work, we know that, we're not shying away from that but one of the reasons why I came to this club was the ambition is clear. I think the support's there, the infrastructure's there, everything's in place, we just need to get it all aligned, going in the same direction. And I think if we do that, this club's a really, really big club, it's a massive club. It's got a nice feeling to it because it feels like there's a family feel as well, as it being a really big club. But ambition is there for sure.

Like I said, we need to know where we are now and go, okay, how do we step by step and build and build towards being back in those places? But I'm excited. 21 months ago, you walked out of Chelsea. What would you say to that Graham Potter if you could talk to him now? Oof.

Well, I think at the time, you can imagine I wasn't in a particularly good place because you're disappointed to lose your job and it hasn't gone very well or clearly as well as you'd like. We had some decent moments in terms of the Champions League and was unbeaten in that competition which is not nothing. But nevertheless it was a tough moment. I think that everything will be okay is the bit. I think it makes you better. I think it makes you a stronger person, makes you a better coach. Well I think if you're a stronger person, a better person, it results to being a better coach.

And it gives you some perspective as well, it gives you some ability to see okay what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is it doesn't go very well and you lose your job, but you can still be alright. You can still move forward, you can still have something to offer, you can still grow as a person. So just to take the time and wait and enjoy your family and enjoy the perspective that you maybe get from being outside of the game. Because I said that bubble sometimes you can be a little bit too down the rabbit hole. So be grateful for the good and the bad and just deal with it.