Graham Potter has been nothing short of a disaster as West Ham manager and is the clear favourite to be the next manager sacked even though Ruben Amorim is in real trouble at Manchester United.
Potter has won just six of his 22 Premier League games in charge, giving him an identical record to Amorim’s Manchester United over the same period.
That has left him staring the sack in face, especially with some established and experienced managers out of work.
Premier League table since Graham Potter took over West Ham
Jose Mourinho and Steve Cooper have both been linked with the West Ham job in recent weeks but Benfica and Brondby have come calling, so the current favourites for the job – according to online bookies – are as follows:
10) Lee Carsley
Really interesting name. He does have a job with the England Under-21s but with the next tournament almost two years away, he might be tempted by a Premier League job.
8=) Scott Parker
He ‘knows the club’ but it would be a brave/stupid West Ham chairman who replaced Potter with one of the worst managers in Premier League history.
8=) Michael Carrick
He’s free for a start. And he’s ex-West Ham. But he has zero experience at managing in the Premier League and ultimately failed at Middlesbrough.
7) Kieran McKenna
Highly regarded but his current Championship form with Ipswich Town hardly makes him a credible candidate for a Premier League job. And he is on a hefty contract that will scare the living sh*t out of David Sullivan.
6) Frank Lampard
They hate him. Next…
5) Edin Terzic
In our manager move predictions, we have him at Aston Villa replacing Unai Emery but West Ham might be a lure as he was there as assistant to Slaven Bilic several moons ago. He was strongly linked when the Hammers were looking to replace Julen Lopetegui and he will be strongly linked again.
4) Gary O’Neil
He’s ex West Ham. And he speaks well. And we already had him nailed down for this job. As we predicted: ‘With the entirety of the football media in smugly self-satisfied ‘Careful what you wish for’ mode as West Ham languish at the foot of the table and David Moyes has Everton purring, everyone agrees to forget what an angry shambles O’Neil’s final few months at Wolves descended into, preferring instead to focus on the correctness of the Hammers appointing a Proper Football Man to bring back a bit of Moyesy steel to the Irons.
3) Gareth Southgate
Keeps finding himself towards the top of these markets (including the Manchester United one) but we cannot see Southgate taking a risk in the Premier League when he is very firmly on the corporate speaking trail.
2) Brendan Rodgers
One of the names very strongly linked with West Ham at the back end of last year before Potter replaced Lopetegui, and he does have form for leaving Celtic mid-season, but would he leave another title challenge for the Hammers? And would West Ham pay the compensation?
1) Nuno Espirito Santo
The absolute stand-out candidate having been very harshly sacked by Nottingham Forest. He took a seemingly relegation-bound Forest into Europe and West Ham should absolutely be interested in that CV. It’s whether it makes almost too much sense for a daft club.