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Remember Graham Potter? He was the guy who, at the peak of his popularity, was being talked up as Gareth Southgate\u2019s successor as England manager. Then Chelsea happened and the manager with a degree in leadership and emotional intelligence, was made to look like he had a dunce\u2019s cap on.<\/p>\n
Eight months on from his Stamford Bridge sacking, Potter remains out of work, out of sight and out of mind – or at least he did until flickers of speculation linking him with Manchester United emerged this week.<\/p>\n
The stories are tentative but dots are being joined. Erik ten Hag retains the backing of the Old Trafford powerbrokers and will do whatever fate has in store for his flaky United side at Anfield today. But the wind of change about to blow through the club, with the impending arrival of Jim Ratcliffe as a minority shareholder with the remit to sort out the football, has brought Potter\u2019s name into the frame.<\/p>\n
Ratcliffe, apparently, is a fan of his work. So too Dave Brailsford, the INEOS director of sport, who will be as influential as anyone in plotting United\u2019s New Year direction of travel. There will be plenty of Chelsea fans spluttering into their cornflakes that they might even be considering Potter.<\/p>\n
After the south-coast sunshine of Brighton, Potter\u2019s time at Stamford Bridge was a storm-tossed shipwreck. But here\u2019s the thing – the record of his successor Mauricio Pochettino has been virtually identical. That should tell us something.<\/p>\n
The problem at Chelsea was never Potter but the anarchic transfer strategy which left him attempting to assimilate so many new players. That he couldn\u2019t manage to do so before the sands of time ran out for him was a reflection more on the credit-card compulsion of the owner Todd Boehly than his own abilities.<\/p>\n
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\u200cPotter made some mistakes, true, but if he has anything about him he will have learned from them. As long as the scarring does not run too deep, he will re-emerge as a better manager for the Chelsea experience. After a period out of the firing line, the time for him to return is approaching but at Old Trafford? No chance. He should not touch the United job with a barge pole.\u200c<\/p>\n
The lure of it would be strong for any manager if they were approached. For all their mis-steps – this week\u2019s Champions League flop being the latest – United remain one of the biggest and most glamorous football clubs in the world.<\/p>\n
\u200cTo be viewed as the man to bring back the glory days to the club is a tantalising prospect, one that would tug at the ego of most managers. But the United job has become a poisoned chalice.<\/p>\n
\u200cManchester United resembles a daily soap opera with its in-house dramas, its tittle-tattle and its dressing room leaks. Toxic, Scott McTominay, called it. The United midfielder was referencing the time before Ten Hag but the Dutchman, after a promising start, is slowly being consumed by it in the same way as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer before him.<\/p>\n
The change of the ownership structure that is on its way is being looked at as a beacon of hope by many United fans. Ratcliffe is, to borrow terrace parlance, one of their own.<\/p>\n
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