Hot Pot makes heart-warming case to be manager of season

THERE are two candidates for the Premier League manager of the season as it reaches its winter break – Pep Guardiola, who is Catalan, suave and sexy, and Graham Potter, who isn’t.

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Guardiola’s success in turning what should have been a tight title race into a procession for Manchester City cements him as the genius everyone knew he was.

But of the 19 clubs operating in Premier League B, the job the unflappable Potter has done at Brighton and Hove Albion has been equally startling in its own way.

With mentions in dispatches for West Ham’s David Moyes and Bruno Lage, of Wolves, it is Potter who has carried off the conjuring trick of the campaign so far.

When Brighton drew with Chelsea in midweek, all the wash-up afterwards surrounded Thomas Tuchel and the stutters his team were going through.

There was little kudos given to Brighton and how they had confounded the natural order of things and dominated the champions of Europe. It was the second time in three weeks that they had held Chelsea.

Brighton have also drawn with Liverpool at Anfield this season and held Arsenal and West Ham.

They attempt to complete a league double over Leicester today from ninth place in the Premier League.

Top half of the table represents spectacular overachievement. The cost of Brighton’s squad suggests they should be in 17th.