HAMMERS SHOT OF POT
Following West Ham’s opening day tonking at the hands of newly promoted Sunderland, Karren Brady rocked up to TalkSport Towers for an interview on live radio the next morning. The club’s vice-chair spent the best part of an hour in the hot seat, during which time she extolled Graham Potter’s many virtues as both a man, a professional and a head coach who needed to be given time. Despite his extremely inauspicious eight-month reign at the London Stadium, he would be given every opportunity to get a tune out of an unbalanced, bang-average, make-do-and-mend assortment of players, many of whom are walking (or at a push slowly jogging) examples of the disastrous legacy of West Ham’s profligate erstwhile technical director, Tim Steidten. “West Ham is not a club that panics about its managers,” said Brady of a club that has just appointed its fourth new gaffer in 16 months. “We tend to support people, stick with them and see it through.”
While both Potter and his predecessor, Julen Lopetegui, could be forgiven for raising quizzical eyebrows at the baroness’s absurd claims about the West Ham hierarchy’s enduring patience, it is undeniable that neither man covered themselves in anything even remotely approaching mediocrity, let alone glory during their respective short and ill-fated reigns. Brady’s claim that West Ham tend to support their employees also seem spurious, given that the club saw fit to shove Potter out to face a hail of bullets fired by assorted snipers from the press pack as part of his preparations for tonight’s match against Everton at Hill Dickinson Stadium, despite knowing they’d be handing him his P45 before the match was played. And so it came to pass that the final duty as West Ham head coach of a likable 50-year-old once touted as a future England manager, was answering questions about a social media wheeze in which his face was superimposed on those of Pope Leo XIV, the Ibiza Final Boss and other random luminaries. In an ironic twist, less than 24 hours later, the visage of Nuno Espírito Santo had been superimposed upon his own.
Having seen their club swap a coach whose football philosophy is possession-based in favour of one who prefers his players to treat the ball as if it is as toxic as a braying bro at the Ryder Cup, West Ham fans will be hoping to see a new manager “bounce” on Merseyside, when Nuno takes his new side to take on a team managed by the first man to win a trophy for West Ham in 43 years. “I got on great with everybody but if people want to keep changing all the time, I don’t know if that is the best way for clubs,” said David Moyes of the turmoil surrounding his former club. “If clubs are always going to keep jumping because of what is probably a minority of supporters then it is going to be difficult for them.”
Given West Ham’s dismal record so far this season, it’s no great surprise that the coach of the team they are due to play tonight would have preferred to see the man who masterminded five defeats out of six games left in charge for at least one more match.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“He’s on a winning team, that’s what we’re all after, so hopefully he’s got a heavy head this morning and he celebrated like he should’ve done. It’s been quite a good weekend for Sheffield United whether it’s in Sheffield, in Oxfordshire, or in New York” – Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder on United fan Matt Fitzpatrick’s Ryder Cup success and, erm, his team’s 1-0 win over Oxford at the weekend.
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