Graham Potter: ‘I feel very Swedish when I’m working – I look a bit Swedish’

I f management has taught Graham Potter anything it is that there is no point in trying to run away from failure. “You’ve got to face the bad stuff,” the 51-year-old says as he thinks about how he recovered from bruising spells at Chelsea and West Ham. “The more you face it, the more chance your life is better. Then you get these beautiful moments.” Potter is in reflective, occasionally punchy mood during a long conversation about a rollercoaster few years and the brutal life of a football manager. He points out there have also been some successes – he has, after all, lifted Sweden out of the doldrums and led them into the World Cup – but knows people tend to focus on the lows. Potter lasted seven months at Chelsea after leaving the stability of Brighton in September 2022. Then, after a long spell out, he was tempted back when West Ham came calling at the start of last year. It was the wrong choice for Potter, who was lost in West Ham’s dysfunction. He won six of his 25 games, made a terrible start to his first full season and found himself at a crossroads after losing his job last September . What next? A career that promised so much was in danger of drifting into irrelevance. “I have had enough life experience to be able to put all these things into perspective,” he says. “I’m grateful for all the experiences I have had, pluses and minuses. In the end, you have to deal with what life throws at you. After West Ham, I could have done two things. …