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Eyebrows were raised among Manchester United fans following reports that Sir Jim Ratcliffe could look to Graham Potter if the club sacks Erik ten Hag.
Pressure is mounting on the Dutchman after a poor start to the Premier League season and early elimination from the Champions League after finishing bottom of their group.
Potter’s growing reputation in football took a severe dent when he was sacked by Chelsea after just seven months in charge.
But reports have suggested Potter is high up on the list of potential successors to Ten Hag, with the Sun reporting that INEOS billionaire Ratcliffe has already met the former Chelsea head coach.
Ratcliffe is on the verge of completing a deal to purchase a 25 per cent stake in United worth £1.3bn, which will give him control of football operations at Old Trafford.
Nice – another club owned by INEOS – have made five managerial changes in the past four years and considered Potter for the manager’s role at the Ligue 1 club.
It shows that Ratcliffe and INEOS won’t be afraid of making a managerial change if they feel like things aren’t going well, and highlights their admiration for Potter.
United face Liverpool on Sunday – who they lost 7-0 to last time around – but it is unlikely any action would be taken if Ten Hag’s side suffer another heavy defeat this weekend.
It has been suggested there will not be any major decisions taken until INEOS complete their partial buyout of the club. But the Dutchman will be determined to straighten the ship to embolden his position before the arrival of the British billionaire and his team.
United fans though have been in this position many times before over the last decade.
David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ralf Rangnick and to date, Ten Hag, have all tried and failed to get United back to the top of English football.
So United fans, understandably, would question why a manager who suffered so much at Chelsea is the right man to turn things around at Old Trafford.
There are certainly some mitigating factors as to Potter’s struggles at Stamford Bridge.
His appointment came in a season where Chelsea spent more than £550m on new players, including £300m on eight new signings in January 2023 alone.
Potter was tasked with finding a way to keep an almost entirely new starting XI happy while trying to maintain an attempt to qualify for the Champions League.
Potter is not the only one to struggle over the last two years at Chelsea. Thomas Tuchel was sacked just months after winning the Champions League and Frank Lampard won just one out of his nine games as interim manager in the Premier League.
Chelsea finished 12th last season, and after 16 games this season, Mauricio Pochettino’s side sit in the same position.
But Sky Sports reported that Ratcliffe and his INEOS team ‘can see beyond what happened at Chelsea’ as it was a ‘difficult and unique situation’.
It is claimed they share Potter’s data-driven approach to sport and value his academic coaching which led to success at Ostersunds in Sweden, Swansea and Brighton.
Potter has not only won himself a fan in INEOS with Ratcliffe, but also their director of sport Sir Dave Brailsford.
The former head of British cycling is reportedly a fan of the manager’s scientific approach to sport.
After hanging his boots as a player, all focus turned to education for Potter, to prepare himself for a career in coaching.
He earned a degree in social sciences from the Open University, before getting a masters degree in leadership and emotional intelligence.
His man-managerial roles was often praised during his time at Brighton, and it was his time at the Amex Stadium which really built his reputation as one of Britain’s top managers.
However, there have been critics who have questioned how good of a job he did at the Seagulls, thanks to the impressive work done since by Roberto De Zerbi.
Potter in his final full year at the club guided Brighton to a ninth placed finish in the Premier League, with Roberto De Zerbi leading them to sixth and a first European qualification spot one year later.
Though Potter was the manager who originally guided the Seagulls into the top 10, De Zerbi is the man now taking the plaudits, with even Pep Guardiola calling him ‘one of the most influential managers in the last 20 years’.
Whether Potter could have led Brighton to Europe it will never be known, but he certainly had a role in their success.
Since his sacking by Chelsea, Potter has been linked with Crystal Palace, turned down opportunities at clubs such as Lyon and even rejected the Swedish national position.
However the job at Old Trafford is on another level where proven winners like Van Gaal, Mourinho and Ten Hag have struggled.
The issues at Old Trafford appear to be deeper than just the manager, and sacking bosses over recent years hasn’t changed their fortunes no mater who they go for.
But with seven defeats in 16 Premier League games, and one win out of six during their miserable European campaign, noise is growing around Ten Hag’s future.
So if Ratcliffe decides to look elsewhere when his 25 per cent takeover is confirmed, Potter is the sort of manager that appears to fit the billionaire’s mould.
He has a reputation for developing youngsters, building a team spirit and at 48-years-old he is still one of the brightest young managers in the game.
But United fans are demanding and while they would back Potter if he was put in charge, his lack of name power and his history at another big club in Chelsea might make winning over their support his biggest task of all.
The supporters demand success and Potter would have a challenge on his hands to convince them that he can be the man to finally end years of hurt at Old Trafford.
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
