Head Coach **Graham Potter** says everyone associated with West Ham United wants nothing more than the men’s first team to perform well and win games regularly.
The Hammers have started the 2025/26 Premier League season in indifferent form, but have the opportunity to record a second win – and first at London Stadium – against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
As is the case at every football club, but particularly those under the spotlight of England’s top-flight, when results are not positive, then pressure builds on those in charge, the staff and the players, while supporters and the media ask questions about what is going wrong.
That was the case during Potter’s pre-match press conference at Rush Green training ground on Thursday, and the Head Coach answered those questions openly and honestly.
Everybody wants West Ham to do well
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At every football club, if you don’t win as much as you’d like, there’s always noise, there’s always pressure, there’s always criticism, and that’s fair, that’s the world we’re in.
Everybody wants West Ham to do well. The fans do, the players do, me and my staff do, the Board do. We’re all on the same page in terms of how much we love the Club and how much we want the Club to do well, and we’re all hurting the same.
So, we have to try to, and we will stick together. We will, because that’s part of this Club as well. It’s part of something really special about this Club.
At the same time, you have to hear when there’s criticism and when there’s feedback. You have to hear that as well and listen to that and think about how you can improve.
I think you have to do lots of things in these jobs. You have to build, you have to develop, but you also have to win and I think it’s fair to say we haven’t done that as much as we’d like.
Then, when you don’t do that as much as you’d like, there’s always pressure, negativity, all those things. But at the end of the day, this job is a fantastic job. It’s an important job, an amazing football club with an incredible support, a fan base and an ambition.
So, if you want to do something good, and it is important and it’s hard, then it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be hard. That’s just the nature of the job. In the highest league in the world, if you think it’s going to be easy, then it clearly isn’t.
But I think you have to do all of those things, build, develop…
Our home record hasn’t been what we want
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We’ve played two matches at home. We’ve played against Chelsea, who are the Club World Champions, and we’ve played against Tottenham, who are also completing the Champions League.
So, we’ve played two teams that have invested and have got good teams, good squads. The sample isn’t big this season, but of course last season as well, the home record for a period of time hasn’t been what we want in terms of points and maybe even performances, probably even before my time.
So, to be able to change that around, you need a bit of time to do that. You need a bit of time to change the dynamic. But I don’t think it’s about that. I think it’s more you have to analyse things game by game.
Tottenham, I think we played well in the first half. I think we were in the game and the reaction to the supporters was of that at half-time, coming off really well. But pretty quickly we go a goal down and then we react well, but then we have a red card and then the game goes away from us.
Chelsea was a slightly different story, but for us we have to focus on the next match and perform well and bring that first half that we felt was positive to the game and take up the challenge.
In the Premier League, it’s difficult to control the whole thing for 90 minutes, so when you have to suffer, you have to suffer and you need a bit of luck sometimes, like every team.
But our challenge at home is to play well, is to play better than we have. I think there were signs against Tottenham, there were signs against Chelsea. But again, probably where we’re at at the moment, to compete with those teams, it’s difficult. We have to be perfect, and we weren’t perfect and then you’re punished and when the scoreline goes against you, that’s ultimately the game. The game is changed by goals and we were affected a little bit too much by the goals.
Sometimes, when things aren’t going the way you want it to go, everybody’s scrambling for ideas and reasons for it and the reality of it is we all want to pinpoint something specific, but it’s often lots of little things that we need to adjust and change and work at and that’s what we’ve been doing.
The responsibility is mine. We have to improve it. We know that. Like I said, that’s the opportunity that we have to improve it. We think we can do that. There’s no point, as I said, shying away from it.
At the moment, we’ve been punished and we’re a little bit vulnerable from it, but that gives us an opportunity to grow and get better and that’s what we choose to do.
Crystal Palace are doing a lot right
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When you have those results, clearly they’re doing a lot right, as FA Cup winners into Europe.
I think they’ve done a fantastic job in terms of how they’ve built that project. Under the coach and the Board, they’ve worked together.
So, yeah, they’ve lots of good players, clearly know what they’re doing in and out of possession, in attack and defence. They’re solid.
But like any team, nobody’s perfect. We have to focus on ourselves first and foremost and then look to see how can we attack, how can we defend to make it a problem for them as well.