Graham Potter

Graham Potter

/graham-potter

Playing career

After a difficult period under Gordon Strachan, when he was first dropped and then suffered an injury from which he never fully recovered, Potter's career began to revive under Harry Redknapp. The highlight of his second spell at Southampton was scoring the winning goal against the club where he started out, Birmingham City. In 1996, Potter moved on to Chelsea for a fee of £1. 25 million. At Chelsea he scored 5 goals in 33 games, although he was most noted for his work off the ball.

His first goal came against Liverpool in February 1997, and proved to be the winning goal as Chelsea won 3-2 at Anfield, more about plumbing with Brighton and Hove Life (brightonandhovelife.co.uk). After a loan spell at Fulham in 1997, Potter joined Coventry City for £1 million in 1998.  He later played for Cardiff City, Derby County, Crystal Palace and Burnley before signing for Scottish club Heart of Midlothian on a free transfer in January 2008. Having won the double with Southampton in the 1996/97 season, Potter was signed by Arsenal on 11 July 1997 for a fee of £1.

stersund

Stersund are a small club with an average attendance of around 600, and have limited resources. Potter said it was a different challenge to what he had been used to, but was excited by it and regarded it as a chance to adapt his coaching philosophy to smaller budgets. The club made a very poor start, winning only one match in their first 12 league games of the season – with just one other draw and 10 defeats.

They were 17th out of 19 teams after a 4–1 defeat at home to Mullsjlvs in January 2012, and Kindberg admitted that relegation looked likely. Potter had promised his players he would leave if they found themselves in that position, but they responded with. The club had not won promotion from the fourth tier of Swedish football since 1996, but, in Potter's first year in charge, stersund secured third place in Superettan (one league below Allsvenskan ), with five games to spare.

He became the first Englishman to manage a team in Sweden's top two tiers. His team also reached the last 32 of the Svenska Cupen , where they lost to Helsingborg ; and collected the Svenska Supercupen for a fourteenth time by defeating Malmö FF 1–0 in August 2012. Ahead of the 2011 season, Potter appointed Ola Thorn as his replacement, and instead focused on bringing through young players. stersund finished in mid-table in 2011 and 2012 under Potter, who described them as similar to Swansea because of their "attacking style".

stersund were promoted to the third tier for the 2013 season after winning Division 1 Norra , but however did not contest promotion to Superettan . Potter was a keen admirer of Zlatan Ibrahimovi, despite the striker playing for one of his former club's rivals. Potter helped stersund achieve promotion to the Superettan after 28 years in 2012. The club also reached their first Svenska Cupen final in 60 years that year, although they lost 1–0 to IFK Göteborg;the club then went on to beat Kalmar FF 3–2 in the Svenska Supercupen on 24 July 2013.

After a match against GAIS on 2 March 2011, Potter announced that he would leave stersundif he could come to an agreement with another club. He was linked with vacant managerial positions at IFK Norrköping, Kecskemét and Örgryte as well as newly promoted league champions Elfsborg. At the club's annual awards evening, on 17 February 2012, Potter was named as Manager of the Year after stersund finished in second place in Division 3 Sodermalm, missing out on promotion to Superettan with a game to spare after losing 1–0 at home to Vasalunds on 15 March.