To blame Potter for West Ham's plight misses the bigger picture

IT is hard to know what should be more concerning to West Ham supporters: another late collapse at Brighton on Saturday or Graham Potter's strained appearance afterwards.

- By Dan Kilpatrick

Potter slumped into his chair in the Amex’s auditorium after a 3-2 defeat to his former club with the air of a man who has just lived through a thousand years of agony and is now being forced to take questions on the experience.

“The pain at the moment is pretty hard,” he said, having braced himself with several deep breaths and some vigorous face-rubbing. In truth, though, it was not so much what Potter said but how he said it; after a little over 100 days and 15 matches in charge of the Hammers, the 49-year-old already seems close to the edge, a man already in danger of being broken and desperately in need of getting through “a tough four weeks” until the end of the season.

He finished the briefing by irritably insisting, “If you want me to swear, I can swear,” delivered with the unconvincing energy of then-Labour leader Ed Miliband insisting, ‘Hell yes, I'm tough enough to be prime minister; during the 2015 general election campaign.