Inside West Ham's scattergun recruitment strategy that leaves managers high and dry - and what the Premier League's best-run clubs would do differently
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Over to you then, Graham Potter. The former Chelsea and Brighton manager will replace Julen Lopetegui as West Ham manager after the club decided to sack the Spaniard halfway through the season - a frank admission that they hired the wrong man to replace David Moyes in the summer. They wanted attractive football and good results. They got neither.
![[The Hammers languish in 14th place despite spending big in the summer transfer window]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/08/18/93880537-14263909-image-a-2_1736360194820.jpg)
Potter may well be an upgrade on Lopetegui, may well be more suited to the attractive, passing football that West Ham and their fans so craved after Moyes but it will take more than just a better man in the dugout to get the club where it wants to be.
![[Graham Potter will be the man tasked with playing attractive football while getting good results]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/08/18/93880469-14263909-image-a-3_1736360221214.jpg)
West Ham’s issues lay beyond Lopetegui. They will lie beyond Potter too. For him to succeed, the club must sort out, more than anything, their transfer strategy. Right now, the Hammers are being left behind on and off the pitch. The Hammers have just one first-team recruitment analyst. Man City have enough to fill two rooms. How long ago it feels now when many declared that West Ham had ‘won the transfer window’ in the summer as they spent £120million on the likes of Niclas Fullkrug, Max Kilman, Jean-Clair Todibo, Crysencio Summerville, Luis Guilherme and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
![[Technical director Tim Stediten has come under fire for his role in the Hammers' approach]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/08/19/93882977-14263909-image-m-26_1736364097245.jpg)
Now, they sit 14th in the Premier League and continue to languish behind the likes of Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Fulham and Nottingham Forest, each of whom have been back up in the top flight for far less time than the Hammers. It’s their recruitment that leaves West Ham in the dust and so much of that is how driven by data. Brighton and Brentford are famed for their approach, led by sports betting moguls Tony Bloom and Matthew Bentham. Bloom has his renowned secret algorithm that helps uncover the next gem.
![[West Ham's strategy is scattergun and languishes behind rivals, including Brighton (pictured - Seagulls chairman Tony Bloom who has a secret algorithm that helps uncover the next gem)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/08/18/93880543-14263909-image-a-6_1736360796905.jpg)
