West Ham travel to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea on Monday night meaning Graham Potter will return to the West London stadium for the first time since being sacked by the Blues in 2023. 

After a rocky start, Potter was let go by then-new owner Todd Boehly after just seven months in charge. In 32 matches, Potter managed 12 wins, 8 draws and 11 defeats which wasn’t good enough for a team that had that much money spent on it.

The 49-year-old said: ‘You’re going to get ups and downs and it was a period of time that, of course, I would have wanted it to go better.

“I didn’t want to lose my job. But at the same time I look back now and maybe it’s the best thing that happened to me and, maybe, the next 10-20 years is going to be great because of the experience I’ve had. I just look at it as a learning experience.

“Sometimes the ones that are more traumatic and the more tough and the more intense, they’re the ones that, if you can allow them to, they’re the ones that can make the biggest difference in terms of growth and development.”

Potter himself believes he has come back a better and more confident coach. After a frantic start to life at West Ham following the sacking of Julen Lopetegui, he takes his Hammers side to Chelsea on the back of an impressive draw at Aston Villa and a fresh air of positivity around the club.

“I needed a few months just to allow myself the time to reflect and decompress and deal with it all”, said Potter.

“Twelve years of that journey across three countries, Wales and Sweden and England, and some personal things that happened along that time as well, I just felt it was the right time for me as a person and as a coach to not necessarily dive back into something.

“It was an intense experience and when it doesn’t go how you want it to go you have to question yourself, you have to analyse yourself and ask what could I have done better.

‘There are other factors going on but at the same time you can’t just blame it all on the club, you’ve got to take responsibility for the things that you can do better. I’d like to think I’ve done that and I think that’s made me a better person and more confident wiser person.”

West Ham United fans have been quickly impressed by Graham Potter. Despite winning just one of his four matches in charge so far, the performances have been a lot better than they were under Lopetegui and there is a clear settle that Graham Potter wants to play but hasn’t quite mastered it yet.

He has had to deal with a lot of injuries – important players like Bowen, Summerville, Fullkrug, Todibo and Antonio have been missing for all of if not 3/4 of Potter’s matches with the Hammers.

With Bowen and Summerville returning on Monday, Todibo expected to return next weekend, and potentially two strikers coming in before tomorrow’s transfer deadline, Potter could begin to prove what a top manager he is at the London Stadium.