Remember Graham Potter? He was the guy who, at the peak of his popularity, was being talked up as Gareth Southgate’s successor as England manager. Then Chelsea happened and the manager with a degree in leadership and emotional intelligence, was made to look like he had a dunce’s cap on.
Eight months on from his Stamford Bridge sacking, Potter remains out of work, out of sight and out of mind – or at least he did until flickers of speculation linking him with Manchester United emerged this week.
The stories are tentative but dots are being joined. Erik ten Hag retains the backing of the Old Trafford powerbrokers and will do whatever fate has in store for his flaky United side at Anfield today. But the wind of change about to blow through the club, with the impending arrival of Jim Ratcliffe as a minority shareholder with the remit to sort out the football, has brought Potter’s name into the frame.
Ratcliffe, apparently, is a fan of his work. So too Dave Brailsford, the INEOS director of sport, who will be as influential as anyone in plotting United’s New Year direction of travel. There will be plenty of Chelsea fans spluttering into their cornflakes that they might even be considering Potter.
After the south-coast sunshine of Brighton, Potter’s time at Stamford Bridge was a storm-tossed shipwreck. But here’s the thing – the record of his successor Mauricio Pochettino has been virtually identical. That should tell us something.
The problem at Chelsea was never Potter but the anarchic transfer strategy which left him attempting to assimilate so many new players. That he couldn’t manage to do so before the sands of time ran out for him was a reflection more on the credit-card compulsion of the owner Todd Boehly than his own abilities.
Potter made some mistakes, true, but if he has anything about him he will have learned from them. As long as the scarring does not run too deep, he will re-emerge as a better manager for the Chelsea experience. After a period out of the firing line, the time for him to return is approaching but at Old Trafford? No chance. He should not touch the United job with a barge pole.
The lure of it would be strong for any manager if they were approached. For all their mis-steps – this week’s Champions League flop being the latest – United remain one of the biggest and most glamorous football clubs in the world.
To be viewed as the man to bring back the glory days to the club is a tantalising prospect, one that would tug at the ego of most managers. But the United job has become a poisoned chalice.
Manchester United resembles a daily soap opera with its in-house dramas, its tittle-tattle and its dressing room leaks. Toxic, Scott McTominay, called it. The United midfielder was referencing the time before Ten Hag but the Dutchman, after a promising start, is slowly being consumed by it in the same way as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer before him.
The change of the ownership structure that is on its way is being looked at as a beacon of hope by many United fans. Ratcliffe is, to borrow terrace parlance, one of their own.
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But the jury is still out on whether diluting the influence of the despised Glazers will have the desired effect. Placing a minority shareholder, however well meaning, in control of the most important part of the business, brings with it potential headaches. Will the Glazers really be able to leave their shiny red toy, the thing that makes them so much money, alone?
Time will tell but there is certainly an added layer of complexity about to be introduced to the set-up and for the United manager, whoever he is, an abnormal job is about to become even more abnormal. What Potter needs from his next job, after Chelsea, is stability not more chaos. Stability and success.
For different clubs success is measured in different ways. For a club of United’s stature it can only mean major trophies but they are miles off winning either the Champions League or the Premier League. So for any manager, with those parameters, failure is almost guaranteed.
The best advice to Potter would be to enjoy Christmas with the family, pretend to like the checked slippers when he unwraps them and sit tight. There will be another job around the corner before long – that is football – and one that is a lot more suitable.
Whatever the temptation of managing Manchester United, at this moment it really is the impossible job.
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