Over to you then, Graham Potter.
The former Chelsea and Brighton manager will replace Julen Lopetegui as West Ham manager after the club decided to sack the Spaniard halfway through the season – a frank admission that they hired the wrong man to replace David Moyes in the summer. They wanted attractive football and good results. They got neither.
Potter may well be an upgrade on Lopetegui, may well be more suited to the attractive, passing football that West Ham and their fans so craved after Moyes but it will take more than just a better man in the dugout to get the club where it wants to be.
West Ham’s issues lay beyond Lopetegui. They will lie beyond Potter too. For him to succeed, the club must sort out, more than anything, their transfer strategy. Right now, the Hammers are being left behind on and off the pitch. The Hammers have just one first-team recruitment analyst. Man City have enough to fill two rooms. How long ago it feels now when many declared that West Ham had ‘won the transfer window’ in the summer as they spent £120million on the likes of Niclas Fullkrug, Max Kilman, Jean-Clair Todibo, Crysencio Summerville, Luis Guilherme and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
Now, they sit 14th in the Premier League and continue to languish behind the likes of Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Fulham and Nottingham Forest, each of whom have been back up in the top flight for far less time than the Hammers.
It’s their recruitment that leaves West Ham in the dust and so much of that is how driven by data. Brighton and Brentford are famed for their approach, led by sports betting moguls Tony Bloom and Matthew Bentham. Bloom has his renowned secret algorithm that helps uncover the next gem.
West Ham have sacked manager Julen Lopetegui after a disappointing first half of the season
The Hammers languish in 14th place despite spending big in the summer transfer window
Graham Potter will be the man tasked with playing attractive football while getting good results
Brentford boast of their ‘seven stages of recruitment’ that narrows down a vast database of more than 85,000 players across 16 positions until they have a narrow list of top targets to show to manager Thomas Frank.
The Seagulls recently axed most of their full-time scouts as they further placed their emphasis on data. David Pleat left his role as a consultant scout at Tottenham in the summer as the club purged virtually all of their ‘eye in the stands’ scouts in favour of analytics.
Forest are a different beast now to the one that signed 30 players in two windows after promotion and have since tripled their number of analysts, led by technical director George Syrianos – a data expert with strong links to the Bundesliga.
Targets are identified, then the scouts go to work. Data first, eyes second. Until recently, the feeling behind the scenes at West Ham was it has always been the other way around.
Technical director Steidten regularly watches targets in action. His brother Moritz is the club’s head of scouting and oversees a network that includes former QPR and Sheffield United defender Georges Santos, who is tasked with scouring Europe for the best transfer targets.
The hope is that this will improve. Max Hahn joined in February from Werder Bremen as the club’s head of technical recruitment and analysis, hired by Steidten, and is trying to implement a system where data comes first.
If he is to build it, they must stick to it. Potter, a former Brighton manager, knows the importance of that more than anyone. He must push hard for it. They cannot afford to have some signings led by data, others because the manager fancies them and one more because a player’s agent might have the ear of the chairman.
In the summer, Steidten was key in signing Fullkrug. So, too, Todibo who Mail Sport revealed last month had a half-time bust-up with Lopetegui during a 5-2 home defeat by Arsenal. Kilman, who played under the Spaniard at Wolves, was more of a Lopetegui signing. The same with Carlos Soler, on loan from Paris Saint-Germain.
Technical director Tim Stediten has come under fire for his role in the Hammers’ approach
West Ham’s strategy is scattergun and languishes behind rivals, including Brighton (pictured – Seagulls chairman Tony Bloom who has a secret algorithm that helps uncover the next gem)
It’s unlikely many others would have spent £27m on a 31-year-old striker like Niclas Fullkrug
Steidten was influential in bringing £25m teenage Brazilian winger Luis Guilherme to the club, and Lopetegui has given him 38 league minutes all season.
No wonder there’s no identity. Owner David Sullivan is believed to want to take a more prominent role in this January window in which West Ham are after a forward and a central midfielder. The club need to sell before they buy but are weighing up loan moves for Brighton striker Evan Ferguson and Chelsea midfielders Carney Chukwuemeka and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
All this while sacking the manager Sullivan brought to the club in the summer.
West Ham say their transfer approach is a ‘collective’ one, but it’s Sullivan who signs the cheques. Since he took over in 2010, the Hammers have spent in excess of £300m on more than 50 forwards. It shows that other teams plan better too.
West Ham received £105m for Declan Rice two summers ago. A month later, James Ward-Prowse signed for £30m and he’s now out on loan at Nottingham Forest, a club currently third in the Premier League. Edson Alvarez, another central midfielder, signed for £35m from Ajax and has started just 11 games this season. Can you imagine Brighton or Brentford doing that?
They would have anticipated Rice’s departure and either brought in his replacement already or had his successor lined up. Brighton signed Moises Caicedo in 2021 and sold Yves Bissouma to Tottenham for £25m a year later. When Caicedo then joined Chelsea for a British-record £115m, Carlos Baleba came straight in, at a still-hefty price of £23m, but he is now the heartbeat of their midfield. When Marc Cucurella was sold to Stamford Bridge for close to £60m, Pervis Estupinan signed immediately and provided an upgrade.
Brentford signed Yoane Wissa and Kevin Schade long before Ivan Toney left. Bournemouth announced the signing of young Argentinian full back Julio Soler on Tuesday, you imagine he might replace reported Liverpool target Milos Kerkez as soon as this summer. These are clubs that look ahead, plan multiple windows in advance.
‘It’s much better, in my opinion to sign a young English player who’s a big talent for the future rather than spend a huge amount of money on a player who only presents you with a problem four months down the line,’ said Brentford’s director of football Phil Giles recently. It’s unlikely they would have spent £27m on a 31-year-old striker like Fullkrug, who has no resale value as he declines with age.
Steidten played an influential role in bringing £25m teenage Brazilian winger Luis Guilherme to the club in the summer, yet Lopetegui gave him just 38 league minutes all season
James Ward-Prowse was signed for £30m last season, but is now on loan at Nottingham Forest
If you already have your ducks in a row, you don’t need to win the transfer window. You’ve picked up your wins along the way.
When Mark Noble retired, many behind the scenes felt that youngster Conor Coventry was a natural successor. He never got a chance, played one Premier League game and was eventually sold to Charlton. Potter must get more from West Ham’s promising youngsters when he takes over. Moyes and Lopetegui were both reluctant to turn to academy products during their time as pressure built on them.
Yet this is a club, after all, that won the FA Youth Cup two years ago, thumping Arsenal 5-1 in the final at the Emirates, yet the last academy product to make his full league debut was Jeremy Ngakia all the way back in 2020.
More than half of those Cup winners joined the club before the age of nine. Kaelan Casey, who started that final and has made one Premier League appearance this season, joined at the age of five.
West Ham prefer to get them in younger and develop them. And they know they have to. They cannot compete with the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, City and Arsenal who fight aggressively to sign the next wonderkid.
Over the last two years, the Hammers lost four players after Under 14s, just before they sign scholarships, to those sides – two to Arsenal, one to Chelsea and one to City. City paid around £1.5m to sign their new talent and move his family and put him through private school. That is a tough offer to turn for parents to turn down.
West Ham can’t compete with that. They cannot sign an Under 15 for £2million with no guarantees of where he will end up. City can, especially if one of them turns out to be Cole Palmer.
West Ham had a situation recently where they wanted to pay compensation for a player at Under 15 level only for Chelsea to have already offered double.
West Ham have a terrible record at signing strikers since David Sullivan took over in 2010
Potter needs to get more out of youngsters, with very few breaking through into the first team, like Divin Mubama, who joined Man City after growing frustrated at a lack of game time
Steidten has been asked to stay away from the training ground by both Lopetegui and Moyes
They can’t offer full-time schooling either. So, prospective signings up to the age of 12 must live within an hour of their academy training ground at Chadwell Heath, just outside Romford. For secondary school, it must be an hour and a half. They cannot sign from outside of that catchment area until they have finished their GCSEs.
So, the Hammers focus on London. The academy has five full-time scouts posted in different areas of the capital and two recruitment analysts who make the most of Impect data software.
They have a full-time scout in Northern Ireland, too, a region not affected by the Brexit rules that forbid clubs from buying overseas talent under the age of 18.
Patrick Kelly, on loan at Doncaster, and Callum Marshall, on loan at Huddersfield, have both come through that system and were part of the FA Youth Cup final side.
Yet only five of that side have gone on to make a Premier League appearance: Oliver Scarles, Casey, George Earthy and Divin Mubama. The last name in that list looked set to become the next striker off the rank but got frustrated at his lack of minutes, rejected a contract offer, and joined City last summer.
Potter cannot afford to let the same happen under his watch. He is expected to sign a two-and-a-half year deal but West Ham originally wanted him to sign for six months, hardly enough time to build a team in your image.
For clubs like Brighton and Brentford and Bournemouth, so much of their identity is driven by their sporting or technical directors. They set the vision and everyone buys into it.
At West Ham, their technical director Steidten has been asked to stay away from the training ground by the club’s last two managers. His own future appears unclear. If he departs, everything changes again.
So, if he is to achieve the success West Ham demand, Potter has a bigger job on his hands than just turning the results around.
