Freddie Potts looks like me light finally make a real West Ham breakthrough under Nuno Espirito Santo’s management.

The 22-year-old has been talk for the academy of football for a number of years now, being son of Steve Potts and brother of Freddie Potts obviously helped him with that, but it’s his talent that has made him one of the most promising players coming out of the academy. After tow impressive loans at Wycombe Wanderers in League one at Portsmouth in the Championship, Potts now believes he’s ready to step up to the Premier League.

It looked like Potts was going to get a Premier League chance under Graham Potter, he loved using Potts in pre-season, in fact he featured in every single game, even starting the final pre-season match against LOSC Lille at the London Stadium, which many assumed would be the starting lineup vs Sunderland. However, he kept all the outfielders the same apart from Potts, who for some reason was replaced by Guido Rodriguez.

Potter used Potts sparingly off the bench, coming on when games were over just for damage limitation, but he deserved more than that, especially because players like Rodriguez, James Ward-Prowse and Andy Irving were getting minutes over the born and bread West Ham United fan.

However, the Potter nightmare for the club and Potts himself is over now, Nuno has already given Potts a more real chance than Potter did, he was subbed on for Soungoutou Magassa after 59 minutes in his first match on Monday. He had an important role when he came on to continue the defensive cover Magassa had been providing, while also helping us find the equaliser.

Potts did exactly that, he looked calm and confident in and out of possession, helped break down Everton attacks and even made the most tackles on Jack Grealish in the whole match, despite just playing a third of the 90. The fact he played well against a good team and Nuno doesn’t favour James Ward-Prowse you wouldn’t be silly to expect Freddie Potts could have an important role to play at West Ham this season.

Nuno’s Forest team was known for having two physical and almost defensive midfielders in the middle of the park, Potter’s midfield of Magassa, Paqueta and Fernandes didn’t really have that, instead it was Magassa sitting with Fernandes and Paqueta ahead. If Nuno reverts back to the way he played at Forest, there could be space for both Magassa and Potts in a double pivot with either Paqueta or Fernandes ahead of them, making it more of a 4-3-1 instead of the 4-3-3 we played on Monday.

With Arsenal coming  up on Saturday, I can see Nuno dropping Fernandes for Potts and moving to  slightly more defensive midfield to combat Arsenals’ inevitable domination of possession and attacks. Obviously when Soucek returns from suspension, Potts may be the third choice defensive midfielder, but if he manages to get 10-15 starts this season under Nuno, it certainly would have been worth sticking around and not going out on loan this season.