Graham Potter: The Truth About My Chelsea Story & What's Next (E308)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance app. Accept that you're not going to be perfect and try to find something that is meaningful, that is worth the sacrifice, and then just try your best. You just heard the voice of former Chelsea, Brighton and Swansea manager Graham Potter, who joins us today on High Performance. I'm Jake Humphrey, and this show was created because I'm fascinated by how people find their own version of high performance. And I'm Damien Hughes, an expert in the world of creating high performance cultures. I'm lucky enough to work with people to help them understand how to create environments that get the best out of themselves and others.

1:04So, today's guest, Graham Potter, well, he's got the most remarkable footballing story and we should celebrate his incredible management career because it is unique. He took Swedish club Ostersund through three promotions before being recruited to the Premier League where he managed Swansea City and Brighton. He took them from having narrowly avoided relegation to ninth place in just three seasons. He left Brighton when they were in the Champions League places in the Premier League. He got picked for one of the biggest jobs in football at that point, the manager of Chelsea. But he lasted just seven months in charge before being dismissed in April 2023.

1:41Since then, he's been on a long career break to reflect, recover, and today he breaks his silence. And in his very first podcast appearance since leaving Chelsea, you're going to hear someone who's had time to reflect on not only what he did right, but what he did wrong as well and what was simply out of his control. You're also going to hear the human behind the headlines, the pain that comes from operating in a ruthless business like the Premier League and that as far as Graham is concerned, he's only getting started with his career. Most fascinating of all though, you're going to hear a man talk about the power of a culture to lift people up and allow people to thrive and sometimes to create chaos and inhibit high performance.

2:22and you might feel you know Graham and you know the story he went through but you're about to hear things in this conversation you haven't heard before that will leave you shocked let's do it then as we welcome Graham Potter to High Performance

2:40well Graham welcome to High Performance thank you you said about your time at Chelsea it didn't go as well as I'd have liked I have to take responsibility for that but I think I'm better for it So tell us how that difficult professional moment has left you better. I think it's like anything in life. You want to win and you want to succeed, but sometimes the real moments of growth or the bits of growth come from adversity, from setback, from struggle. And until you go through those things, you don't really know how you're going to handle them, you don't really know what you're going to get from them, you don't know the thoughts that you're going to have in your own head.

3:21you don't know whether you're going to be able to get through it, all that stuff. So just to have the experience and to feel the feelings and the emotions and the cognitive process that you have to go through to deal with it all is priceless. I spoke to somebody who was talking about having a similar experience in a different setting. And he looked back at the time, he said at the time it was awful, like it was proper challenging and horrible. He said, but when I look back on it, I said, if somebody offered me£100 million to take that experience away, I said I wouldn't do it because it's just been so valuable for me just to have that struggle.

4:00And I think we're in a culture where winning is, if you succeed, winning is everything, and we're in a results business, so you've got to win, you've got to be successful. And of course, that's obvious. But there's nobody, I don't think, that gets to any level of performance or achievement that doesn't suffer and doesn't feel like they've made mistakes or things haven't gone their way. And then it's about how you learn, I suppose. And the process for me has been, and this is the tricky bit, I think, it's been, okay, you want to take the bits that you want to learn from. You want to take responsibility.

4:37What could I do better? What actually, where were the mistakes I made? And at the same time, you've got to put the context and look at the situation and go, okay, well because you can beat yourself up too much because that's a mistake and on the flip side if you just go it was crazy Chelsea that's a mistake so you've got to try and find the right balance I guess I think it's the first time you've sat down on a podcast right to have this kind of conversation and are you happy to to delve into what happened at Chelsea because I think it is interesting the specifics of some of that stuff but also what you learned but also how long it's taken you to learn that the kind of the I guess the mental gymnastics that you've probably gone through over the last few months to go from a place where you spoke about bitterness and anger and frustration to being in a place where you can relate to someone who says, actually, I'm grateful for that experience.

5:24Yeah, for sure. And it's, you know, I started to say this lightly because I've lost both my parents, so I know about grieving, but it almost feels like a grieving process. You know, there's an anger, there's a bitterness, there's a frustration, there's a sadness. And at that time, probably you're not able to process things in a good way because you've got these feelings that you have to deal with. I spent 12 years building up my career it didn't come for free family moved three countries from Sweden three promotions a major trophy in Sweden a Europa League run that gets you into beating Galatasaray beating Pauk beating Hertha Berlin then playing Arsenal and then Swansea and then Stregnick and then Brighton and building all that stuff up and then it felt like at Chelsea it was like woof this has gone quite quickly away from you so you sort of have to deal with that frustration and to deal with that you know anger you don't have to make sense of it really and like I said it's easy to blame somebody else because that's how the brain works the survival mechanism of our brain when we're under threat and when we're facing things we don't like to face it's easy to point the finger somewhere else so you have to really work hard psychologically I think to and I've had some help from people as well because I don't think you can do it on your own but you have to try to work hard and try to to allow yourself the time to to work through the inevitable bitterness anger frustration sadness to come to some sense of it and to make it useful so it sounds in many ways like the grief curve the the kubler-ross curve of you start with anger and then it gets into denial before eventually that stage of acceptance becomes a place that we all try and strive for.

7:12Would you tell us a little bit about the different stages then? So, what happened in that initial anger? Yeah, it's anger, sadness, disappointment, yeah. I think, again, referring back to the grief type of scenario, it's just when you think you're out of the woods, all of a sudden you'll have another setback or something. And especially in football, and the setback was always every Saturday when the teams are going and playing and you get a reminder of stuff and how do I deal with this? How do you get forward? Because there's always a game, there's always something to remind you. Chelsea are always playing, Brighton are playing, you know, Brighton are doing well.

7:49Chelsea are struggling and you're thinking, you know, you're trying to work out how to be a human being again. You're adapting to not being in football. It's the first time in, what, 30 years that I've not had a game on the weekend to go to. You know, how do I reconnect with my kids? Because my wife would say to me, you know, You're here, but you're not here sometimes when I was a football manager. And I can obviously, you know, I think most people, you'll hear that often sometimes. I think when people are in these positions, you know, sometimes you forget the perspective. You forget to have that balance that is necessary for high performance.

8:28You end up getting into it like almost on a wheel, you know. And it's harder to get off it and get that perspective that you need. so you almost have to learn learn to be a a normal person how do you deal with a weekend when you haven't got football you know you can go shopping a couple of times but then it starts to get a little bit hmm not sure about that so yeah and then eventually I suppose after lots of like I said just when you think you're clearing it and then you set back and then you clear it and then you set back and then eventually I think you come to a point where and I think you have to put strategies in place where you know I just focus a lot on self-care.

9:07You know, I went to the gym. I tried to sleep better. I tried to... Diet was going to be better. Everything that I could do to make myself feel better, I tried to do. And then through conversations with friends, with my family, with professionals that helped me through to almost, you know, make sense of it all, really. And in the end, you just have to be at peace with yourself and go, well, I did my best. You know, I did my best. I gave everything to it. It didn't work. It didn't happen as I wanted it to happen. We still were unbeaten in the Champions League. There were still things that were good.

9:44I still had some unbelievable experiences there and I'll be forever grateful for it. But at the same time, you have to deal with the disappointment.

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11:33it's very interesting listening to you talk because it when you talk about the long the 12-year journey and this by the way doesn't even take into account the years as a footballer that you had to understand the game and understand disappointment and frustration in that world as well then becoming a manager it almost feels like it was successful it was methodical it was thought about you put everything that you had into your career and then almost in the blink of an eye a bit like going through a washing machine. You've suddenly gone into Chelsea, you've been spun around and you've come back out the other side.

12:02Like a shock almost is the way that you're talking. Does that make sense? A certain amount of it, yeah. I mean, because you have to understand, I suppose the context of the time at Chelsea, you know, the year before or something that won the Champions League, when you think about what they've achieved as a club over the last 25 years, for example, with the Abramovich era, you know, a really successful football club. And at the time, they'd gone through a massive transition, big turnover players the start point for when I went in there you know they just spent 300 million in the in the window Thomas was the manager he left after the window um you know they lost Rudiger lost Christensen lost Alonso Chelsea as a team built on you know defensive stability also then those key ones are gone replacing them with Koulibaly and different players that need time to settle in and the new owners come in want to change the the dynamic at Chelsea, behind the scenes, a lot of key people left behind the scenes in terms of leadership at the club, in terms of medical team, et cetera, et cetera.

13:05And then all of a sudden, you're in this washing machine, I explain, feeling, where we had 14 matches in six weeks was the start point. Champions League, Premier League, Champions League, Premier League, which is an overload situation for me because that's the next step. And I think looking back, one of the mistakes would be, well, if you're going to give yourself that step up, give yourself a chance to plan, to reflect, to go into a situation with some time to train, with some time to practice. So why didn't you, when the offer came, say actually, do you know what, I've spent 12 years trying to get to this point, I'm not going to get a transfer window, there is new ownership, you have just fired a really popular manager, you have just lost a load of experienced footballers, maybe yes one day but not now.

13:49Yeah, good question. And I've asked that question a lot, have you? Yeah, of course. but I think you can only go off the conversations I had with the owners it happened quite quickly so maybe there was a mistake in terms of you know not giving it the proper thought at the end of the day it's still Chelsea Football Club it's still how they were talking about was and I think you've seen it now to a certain extent you know young players talented players but you know competing at the top of the game having the funds to compete at the top of the game to win trophies all that stuff that spoke about culture spoke about environment spoke about bringing a lot of what I did at Brighton to Chelsea but at a higher level so and changing culture from an owner I underestimated okay culture just because the owner goes there's still a culture around the expectation of of Chelsea you know what's happened for 25 years is results haven't gone very well in a relatively short period of time pressure's built pretty quickly and the owner's pressed the button and the manager's been ejected out that's essentially what has happened at Chelsea for 25 years and they've won as well so just because the owner's gone there's still a cultural expectation of how that was and again at the time we weren't winning as much as we should have done or Chelsea expect and then the obvious answer is well, the coach isn't good enough the coach isn't up to it and that's a frustrating bit because I'm going, well I've spent 12 years building myself as a career and I think I am a competent coach Chelsea wasn't the first opportunity I had I turned other ones down before I went there.

15:26So I think you're written off quite quickly. How quickly do you think you were? Fairly. Fairly quickly, if I'm being honest. But again, I understand why, because I think the context was Chelsea aren't winning. It must be the coach. But you did start winning. I mean, you had a great start. Yeah, good job. Otherwise, it lasted even shorter. So when do you... I think you spoke at one point about it felt like the walls were closing in. It felt like a crisis, right? you know as the head coach what's happening behind the scenes. So the challenge is, how do you communicate this? How do you stay logical?

15:58How do you try to explain the challenges that you have without it sounding like it's excuses and you're weak? That's the reality. I said at the time, I think Chelsea was the hardest job in football. It's not that I couldn't do it, but I think it was at that time. And obviously, it's easy for me to say that and it's a bit of a cheap thing to say because I don't know the other context. I'm not for a second thinking that. But the feeling I had with all the history of Chelsea, with all that was going on in terms of the change, if you change 20, 30 players in two or three windows, the instability of that is hard to deal with.

16:32Can you explain that for us? For people that don't understand, most people will go, 20, 30 world-class players came in. Wonderful. You've got amazing talents at your disposal, yet you're saying it's so difficult to deal with. What are the specifics of why that's so hard? Well, again, you have to go back from the, from before I got there. You know, Thomas is obviously a top, he's a fantastic football coach, but they'd lost to Arsenal in pre-season, they'd lost to Leeds, they'd lost to Southampton, they'd lost to Zagreb. So the team was in, you know, it was in a moment of growing. I think probably six players had come in, six players had left.

17:11You know, already there's a turnover of players. You just need to stabilise a little bit. And then we went into the 14 matches in six weeks prior to a World Cup, which is pretty unique. we lost well Kante was already injured before we were there Rhys got injured Chilly got injured and all of a sudden the wing backs at Chelsea which had been quite a big part of their attacking game they'd gone we lost Fafana who came in as a replacement for the ones that you'd lost and all of a sudden things were just being a little bit unstable and then the January was about okay the owners felt that they wanted to invest again in the team and you know big amounts and I think as a coach and someone that's been in football a long time I'm thinking in January to do that it's not as straightforward that they're going to come in and hit the ground running and get success because you're buying young players you're buying players from outside the Premier League maybe players that are coming on a mid-season break so they need to get up to speed the likes of Mudrick, the likes of Fernandes the likes of Badr-Sheely these are young guys that haven't been successful in the Premier League if you're buying Declan Rice and Harry Kane I think you've got less argument because everyone knows what they do.

18:20They're Premier League ready and they can go into the team and you can win. But the problem when you're spending that sort of money, especially at Chelsea, that there's a demand that they have to win. You have to win at Chelsea. There's not too much time to develop and bed people in because there's emotion that's involved and there's an expectation from the fans that we have to win. And then when you don't win, you've got pain and you're frustrated as a supporter. What the hell? What's going on with my club here? We've got all this money. We've got these players. but my point to the owners as well was if you're going to sign these players you might need to move some out as well because otherwise if you've got 30 only 11 play so you've got 20 players that aren't happy and that in a team is difficult because you want competition you want healthy competition but you don't want too many people thinking I'm not even getting a shirt here I'm not even stripping because I'm not even in the 18 so that was a particular challenge and sometimes you know football always looks for a recruitment answer as a solution but actually it takes time as well it takes time for people to okay this partnership and this settled team is what we're all sort of striving for you see now teams suffering they have some injuries have some problems all of a sudden it doesn't look so easy for them anymore that's my explanation I suppose as how 30 players and when it happens so quickly people are looking around going you're not responsible for this which is good because they know okay you're not responsible for this but on the flip side you're not responsible for this so who is?

19:55And how does that impact the way they relate? Well I think from a leadership perspective it's harder to get you know you need some I suppose authority has to come from a you know a place of a good place not because you're a title but so there's okay this is all making a bit a sense, whereas at the time, the noise around Chelsea at that time, spent 300 million in a January window, the media go, boof, pressure, team, pressure, coach, you've got to win. And then the flip side to it all is we'd had these injuries, and obviously injuries is a bit of a challenge for everybody. The challenge with, I think as a manager these days, is you can have players injured, but then once they're back fit, they're not back fit.

20:37They're not back fit to play three games a week. So we had an instance like, you know, Rhys James, for example. You know, he had a long challenge with injury when we were there and then we got him back fit but he wasn't fit to play in the first week three games it's not Saturday Wednesday in the Champions League Dortmund Southampton on the Saturday but if you leave him out on the Saturday all of a sudden you know you're rotating your team you don't know your best 11 what's your all that sort of that type of questioning but actually you're just trying to periodise the players trying to get them through so that safely you've got a squad that you can use so sounds like I'm a hundred of excuses here and these are all the challenges at the highest level everybody has to do it so I'm not complaining about it I'm just trying to put a context of I think it was a unique situation you walked into I think so and I have to take my responsibility because no one was forcing me to go there I think you look at Chelsea now they're in a better situation and it's an exciting young squad they've got but at the same time I have to think that if you go in and you take a sledgehammer to a place and change it that quickly.

21:45Sometimes there'll be collateral damage. And I think I was a bit of collateral damage and then I have to look at myself and could I have done anything? What could I have done better? And how could I have seen things better or acted differently? Yeah, I mean... Can I ask you about your relationship with the people that appointed you then, the owners? Like, what was it like when they first approached you for the role? And how did the relationship change during the period you were there? I'd like to think I've still got a decent relationship with them. You know, they're smart guys. They're ambitious.

22:21They want the right thing for Chelsea. So I don't think for one second they're doing anything because they want to, you know, ruin my football career. It's just football happens and these things happen. I said it's a combination of a lot of noise around and they sometimes have to act. They were new to it all. You know, I can only imagine, but when I spoke with Tony Bloom, you know, he's a chairman of 10 years and he would say, I look back at the start of my time and make lots of mistakes like we all do when we're starting out doing something you make mistakes you're learning it's not until you get under the bonnet of a football club that you realise okay what do I need to do here and you go down one way and then all of a sudden that doesn't feel right and you go down another way and you try and have to work it out so like I said the initial conversation was about building a culture building an environment creating pathways for younger players for the academy because in the past Chelsea had sold a lot of players on from the academy and they wanted to use them in the first team to have 16 top players competing on the pitch, supplementing with young players so that there's a possibility to sell.

23:30But at the same time, compete and win. So it all sounded really positive and it made sense. and I think because their ambition was so strong they wanted to make some decisions themselves around recruitment and as a head coach I've never got to that I didn't get to Chelsea by being the guy that said I want to be in control of everything I want to decide everything but at the end of the day you're the owner you're the guy that's responsible for the football club if you want to do this then my job is to support it so I tried like I said I tried to do that with the owners had the conversation around, look, if you do spend this money, you might have to overpay.

24:11There's no guarantees it's going to improve because of the profile of the players you're going to buy. And you might have to get some players out. They didn't do that. And they did what they did. And the consequences are we didn't win enough. And once you don't win enough, they have to make a decision. I've always said, I think as a head coach, if the owners think that the problem is you, the results aren't good enough, and the solution is you need to change the head coach, then that's their prerogative. And you have to accept that. but it sounds like when we were lucky enough to speak to Paul Barber he recounted the first meeting he had with you at a service station before the appointed you as Bryson head coach and he said it was a fascinating experience because he felt that you were interviewing him not the other way round that you came in with a really clear idea of how you wanted to run the squad how you wanted to develop it the support you needed and they committed to a three year plan that they knew the change of style from Chris Hewton to you was going to take time to embed.

25:09I'm interested in, did you adopt the same approach when you went in with the Chelsea owners of being really clear about what your standards were and what support you needed? Well, yeah, I mean, I tried to, but I suppose not well enough. It's just the reality. And the situation was slightly different. Again, I went into Brighton, you've got a bit of time to have that thought, that conversation, that planning, that reflection. Okay, what what do we need you know how can we implement the changes you need to get and then how do you go about getting the results enough results that keeps the the wolf from the door that keeps you you know moving forward because in the end if you don't get the results if you don't get results quick enough or enough there's always going to be pressure and there's and there's higher pressure at the bigger clubs and certainly at Chelsea I think just because historically how they've been it's one of the the toughest situations in terms of how that affects things I would say so we managed to managed to navigate it well at Brighton but not so well at Chelsea and things changed that quick like I said things changed that quickly and it was such a unique situation in terms of that many games so quickly I mean we only lost three games in the first three games in the Premier League in the first block of games 14 games we lost three games and those games we lost were 1-0 at home to Arsenal with the best team in the league at the time we beat Zagreb I think no we beat Red Bull Sulzberg sorry to qualify for the knockouts of the Champions League and we played Brighton on the Saturday and we had a bad game there and made a mistake tactically and didn't go about it well and we lost so that was our second defeat in the Premier League and then we lost to Newcastle on the last day 1-0 at St James' Park 5.30 kick off it was like the Wild West Eddie was doing brilliant at Newcastle but the perception was it's absolutely the end of the world and we weren't playing that well in fairness we weren't playing that well but results wise we were like okay you know if you get Rhys back if you get Chile back if you get Fafana back if you get Kante back if you get Kepa back all of a sudden things could maybe stabilise and it's my job as a coach to improve what we've got as it was we took a different decision which is another seven players and then you're like okay we've got to start again here the World Cup preparation time that you think you've got all our players are on the World Cup or they're coming back from injury so you haven't got that preparation time so there's lots of things that just and you look at it you go yeah was it fate is it just meant to be you know sometimes you need a cup run to get you through something we draw Man City away in the FA Cup and Man City away in the League Cup you know it's like okay maybe this is what it is and it just wasn't meant to be One of Sir Alex Ferguson's famous bits of advice he gives to young managers is don't choose the club choose the chairman yeah what advice would you give to any coaches out here about choosing the right chairman then what are the qualities that you feel a head coach would need from them yeah and I think the the reflective piece would be because anybody can say anything in an interview situation in a room we're going to do this we'll do this we'll do this but until you've got evidence of how they're going to act and what they're going to do it's I'd be careful you know like I said Tony Bloom you've got 10 years of experience you've got 10 years of what he actually did when things got tough what he actually did when things happened.

28:34How did he act? So you've got that. When I went to Swansea, Hugh Jenkins, you've got experience and evidence of how he is and what he does. So again, in defence of the owners at Chelsea, they were new to it. So whilst they spoke about things, we still didn't know what would happen if you haven't won in a bit. What would happen if during this transition period results aren't what we want? How does that look? What does the pressure do? What sort of decisions will you make? And did you speak to him about those kind of questions? Well, yes, yes, but I don't think anybody's able to really answer it until you've been through it.

29:12You can say, yeah, we get, you know, Todd Bowley had had one coach, I think, in his 10 years at the Dodgers. So the evidence was there that, you know, he wanted stability. Who were you able to go to for advice in this period? Well, that was the thing, like, during the, you know, we had a World Cup break, which ended up almost being me sort of trying to help the staff understand what was happening because the staff had some key people had left people had been in the club for 15 years so all of a sudden they're thinking what's going on here, morale's quite low how can we make this situation better So what did you do?

29:51We used that camp really as a way of speaking as a group of staff and speaking to all the guys around the first team like almost a development day, coordinate it with Neil Bath and some of the guys there to sort of say, well, okay, what's important to us? How do we want to be in this environment? What's the expectations going forward? How can we make people understand that they're part of it, that we want to make them feel supported, we want to make them feel appreciated, try to communicate where we are in this journey. you know because if everyone's totally negative all the time internally you've got to look and say but you've got to try and almost give some logical reason as to what is happening you've got to try and put the context in context and say yeah it's not because we're all bad and because everything's rubbish it's because things are happening that are making it challenging and we have to together get through this and it went really well like I think the support I've always had from the guys at Cobham the staff there was really good I had good relationships with pretty much everybody I never felt at any point that we'd lost the dressing room or we lost Cobham as a group of staff I think everybody knew how tough it was and everyone was trying to navigate their way through it but I think that wasn't probably my job at that point I think that's where you need a sport director that's probably where you need somebody above you because I went from Brighton which is Tony Bloom, Paul Barber, Dan Ashworth stroke David Weir you know leadership structure to me and then owners on LA on a zoom call at Chelsea going through all this stuff that's happening and I think as I said you know football fans don't want to hear about from a head coach when the result hasn't gone well about this context and this situation and all that's happening here because shut up we've just drew with Brentford or we've just lost them in Arsenal we don't want to hear of this.

31:45But that's why I think this is such a vital and actually powerful conversation because when as time has passed by and the football fans emotion right of what did we win or lose last weekend has subsided because we're now talking about something, you know, 18 months ago. I feel like for you to put it in context is so valuable because it almost sounds like quite a lonely experience, actually, because you're trying to deal with problems you've never dealt with in your entire management career. You've got no one above you who's dealt with these problems that you can go to. You've got a staff below looking at you saying, Graham, what's going on here?

32:16Is loneliness the right word to use? Yeah, because no one else can go through that and you're in your own thoughts and I think sometimes a lot more experienced managers than me will say it can be a lonely job at times and you know that's why we do it there's an intellectual challenge an emotional challenge that is something that you have to face up to and do like I said it's frustrating because on one level you go nobody seems to be getting this and it's like the easy thing is oh Pot's not up to it he's not up to it and that's you know let's just write it off because we're not winning enough okay fair enough and like I said I wasn't perfect so they're not 100 % wrong with that because clearly no one's perfect and if you're not winning football matches there's always something you can do better but nevertheless you have to deal with that try and hold it together I think you're right everyone's looking at you and then you've got the media which is when I'm at Brighton doing well I'm this emotionally intelligent calm intelligent guy and when I'm losing at Chelsea I need to be nastier and angrier and then you're not a Chelsea manager the personality make it about a personality about whatever, you know, are you tough enough?

33:24It's like, well, I don't know about you, but if you go 12 years as a football manager, you go from the fourth tier in Swedish football to the last eight in Champions League and you think that comes for nothing and that just happens. That journey, I don't think there's too many coaches in the world that have done that type of journey. So that doesn't happen because you haven't got these, whatever it is they're looking for, resilience or toughness or ruthlessness or whatever else. You have to make those decisions. Otherwise, you're not going to gain that way. But when you're going through all this stuff, my decision was, I want to remain calm.

33:57I want to be consistent. I want to be me. That's who I am. As soon as I start to be something else, I think I'm letting Chelsea down at that point. Like I said, if you think that we've lost games, so I'm the problem, no, I accept it. Fair enough. Can I show you these two pictures, Graham? Because they say pictures paint a thousand words. There's two pictures here that I want to just show you. So this was your first game in charge there at Chelsea. Yeah. And then this was your final game. The beard's got a bit longer, hasn't it? Yeah. So I'm interested in the impact of this period on your own mental health because those two pictures look like a guy there that is going under an awful lot of the pressure and the stresses that you describe.

34:41And I'm wondering, how did you protect your own mental health to still be you? Like I said, I spoke to a lot of people. I spoke to my friends, my family. I've always been working with someone from a psychological perspective to talk through. I think we all face the challenge of comparing ourselves to other people. You sometimes, you know, your ego gets linked to success. So you have to work really hard to go, okay, ultimately if we don't win, you know, you fail. but I think you've got to work hard to go can you focus on the things that you can control? Can you focus on your behaviours? On how you act?

35:26Because we're playing a game that you can't control as much as coaches think that they can the beauty of the game is you can't but that's why we play it and that's why we love it but nevertheless you have to work on your own mindset or your own brain to go am I doing the things that I can control as well as I can. And, you know, and then when I reflect back, I go, okay, you know, was I exercising enough? Was I sleeping well enough? Was I eating well enough? Was I doing all the things that I can do myself to protect me from the noise that's coming at you all the time? The media, it's a game. It's a game off the pitch and it's a game on the pitch.

36:05Every time, there's probably two clubs outside the top six that are failing because they're not in the top six. Jabbing you, jabbing you, jabbing you, jabbing you. You know, pressure, pressure, pressure pressure pressure and then this and then the flip side is they'll go how how is how how are you doing and it's like well you're not really i don't want you to be bothered about it it's not your job is to ask you questions you know i understand your job but don't come and ask me about my mental health now yeah my mental health is my mental health it's i think i spoke about it once and maybe i shouldn't have done but it was to sort of say look everyone when you talk about challenges to your mental health it's not like you're in bed and you can't get out some days you have good days where physically you feel strong and some days you're going okay I need to think about this I need to I need to understand that this is challenging at the moment and maybe my confidence isn't as high as it can be and you have to sort of regulate yourself but that's been the case all my life you know the inner voice the imposter syndrome all these concepts that people talk about they're all there in all of us I think but at different stages they'll hit you more and then that's where you've got to do your work but the point is whenever you speak about something like mental health there's such a stigma because on the flip side of it is you know really bad stuff you know losing lives can't get out hospitalised etc etc but there'll also be days where you're just not having a very good day and it's still mental health but it's just not the same it's on a different level of spectrum why do you have a sense that you shouldn't have mentioned it I think it's the most powerful thing to talk about yeah I do but I still think there's a feeling that if you do there's a weakness to it There still is.

37:42The cultural alpha male position of a coach is you've got to be strong, all-knowing, thick-skinned, don't care about anybody, you know, that type of stuff. Reality is we're human beings, and whilst we can say this and we can give us this perspective that we don't care about anything, we're human beings. We're programmed to be socially connected. We're programmed to want people to like us in some way, but at the same time, you've got to balance that with a professional job that you have to do and see it for what it is. I'm interested and disappointed, actually, just briefly, that you still feel that we're in that world because maybe we see it differently because of the kind of conversations we have on this show.

38:22You know, we've sat down with Toto Wolff and spoken about his pretty serious mental health challenges that he's carried all of his life. We've spoken with some of the best-known sports people in the country sitting in the chair you're sitting in now who finally feel they live in a world where they can open up and that vulnerability really helps other people. Yep. So it's a shame that after your experience in football, you still feel like there's a long way to go in terms of the perception of people that talk about the challenges with their mental health. And I think we've taken steps, for sure.

38:52And I think the conversations that you have and the conversation that we have are useful. I think it's still a... And it's not like, you know, we should be soft, you know, everything's difficult. It is a challenging conversation and it's a challenging subject to be okay to be not okay. It's fine. To understand that you can perform at a really high level, but maybe not be 100 % physically and mentally is actually all right. Lots of people do it. And this notion that we're striving to be this perfect specimen, this perfect thing, it's like, I'm not sure whether that's so healthy if we want to create high-performing people.

39:29High-performing people are still imperfect. Don't we need to also create an environment where we allow high-performing people to be as high-performance as possible, right? And I think one of the big things is the media narrative, which then informs fan behaviour. So there's a moment where you're getting death threats through the post. You're having to mention your mental health in press conferences, which in some ways feels like you've felt the need to finally do that just to try and quieten the noise or try and calm some of that criticism, I think. But so much of this is driven by conversations that are being had around a game of 22 men kicking a ball into the back of the net.

40:02That's the reality of this. And yet it ends up with death threats being sent. so I don't think we can speak to you today without having a conversation about the media narrative around the game and the true human cost of that yeah but I think that's I think supporters want that to a certain extent there's the like I said there's emotion there's passion around the game so and when people aren't getting the results they want they feel hurt they feel anger you know we see it all the time we can have these nice conversations in here but the reality on the coalface on a Saturday afternoon if you're 3-0 down at home, is, you know, you get an abuse and that's how it is.

40:40And then you might get abuse online and you might get abuse in other ways through the street. And I'm not complaining about it. You know, I'm not sitting here, oh, you know, pity me. But that's just the reality of it. And, you know, you have to accept it to a certain extent, deal with it. I think when it affects your family, it becomes a bit more challenging because you're like, well, they didn't really ask to be this. but it is part of like I said I'm not I'm not complaining about it it's just it does have an impact on how well you can do your job right because you suddenly are you second guessing stuff doubting your decisions not really because I think everyone has the same challenges what you hope for is that you're in a good club with good leadership and that's all you ask for as a coach and I think what I did I walked into Chelsea and I don't think the conditions were there for us to be successful they were there to be really really challenging how do you communicate those challenges how do you keep the thing moving how do you build trust with people because fans expecting this fans expecting that and then if it doesn't go well you just know that that's how it is and then you have to just okay what am I listening to here because you can get criticism everywhere but you have to be really selective of who you listen to and who you block out and who you just don't care because some will have criticism and it'll be fair and some will be educated and some will be useful and some of it will be uneducated not balanced and totally useless you know after the event everyone's a genius should have done this should have done that should have done this should have done that and because you know that the worst thing you can be and I think is to think that you know everything but then the flip side to that is there's always a bit of doubt and there's always you could have done something else you could have done something else so again it's it's been able to manage all that in your own brain and I think that's why my focus has been a lot on self-care and you know making sure that I'm the best version of myself because in the end that's all you've got.

42:30How you think and how you can deal with the situation internally is probably your biggest advantage is your biggest asset. Yeah. And when I think like when we were doing the research to prepare for this Graham there was three incidents almost like thunderbolts in your life that to me demonstrated toughness. There was the occasion when you were when York City announced that you were being released on the day you wedding. there was the occasion where you lost both your parents in the short space of time when you were at Brighton and then there was the Chelsea experience when it came towards the end and I'm interested in you survived that and you were still able to to perform what advice would you give to anyone listening to this that can see somebody going through a tough time and you've been through some of the toughest how you can help people and create that environment where people can still give the best but feel heard and understood and belong.

43:30Yeah, and I think as a leader you've got to set the example. So I think you've got to make sure that you're creating those conditions where people can feel like they don't... It's easy, it's so easy, especially in football and sport, to zoom into the individual, to zoom into the, you know, he's done this wrong or that, and we expect everybody to be perfect. And it's a balancing act because you need to drive standards, you need to have people to be accountable. You want to push boundaries, but you need to just balance it off with, but it's impossible to be perfect. And how can you create an environment where people feel connected, people feel that they're improving, people feel like there's an element of autonomy there.

44:09So can you tell us how you created that, whether that was at Ostersund or Brighton? Well, again, the start point would be me as a leader. This is what I'm about. This is what I believe in. This is how I think it's going to go. so then automatically people can start to hold you accountable because you've just said this is how I want to act this is how I want to be I want to be honest I want to give you feedback I want to be there to support you and challenge you and help you this is my job there's enough going on in the world as a football team there's enough external stuff coming at you for me to make it worse for you as well I'm here as part of this team to help and support part of that will be sometimes I need to kick your arse and sometimes I need to give you a full-eyed conversation this isn't good enough and you need to do better because that's me honestly giving you help and feedback.

44:53But I think that's the start point. And then it's like, okay, well, how do you create a culture where the people in the room, the people think, okay, this is our culture. This is what the easy bit is to come down. These are my rules. Here you go. If you don't do this, this is the punishment. I think it's about how do we want to be? What's our vision? What's our goals here? How do we want to act? And then almost as a coach, you're like, you're just there. you know, observing it. When somebody steps out of line, then it's relatively easy to do something. It's relatively easy to help the group. Because in the end, that's your job.

45:27Your job is to protect the team, protect the group, create boundaries that are clear enough so the individuals can be free to be themselves, but not at the expense of the team. So can you give us an example then of what a boundary would be, that the players would help you co-create? Well, it'd be things like, there's a basic one would be around lateness, for example. You know, timekeeping. for example. As I said, sometimes people just in life make mistakes. And it's timekeeping, it's how they act in training. These are young men that are 20-something years old. It's not in their nature to think about the team.

46:05They're thinking about themselves. The higher you go, the evidence would suggest everybody becomes a bit more selfish, everybody becomes a bit more driven by their own situation. So there's all sorts of imperfect behaviour going on. And rather than get upset by it, and rather than think, oh, you know, like he's letting this down and da-da-da-da. If they make mistakes, it's like, okay, but how can we learn as a group and how can we learn as a team? Because the punishment's the easy bit. It's like, yeah, but do you understand what's happening here? Can you help people understand what the impact on you constantly being late is?

46:37How do these guys feel, for example? What's going on in your world? And why are you being this? What's actually happening? So try to understand why the mistake is happening and try to use it as a way for everybody to learn and the individual to learn. Like I said, as a coach, I think there's always a point where you've got to go, no, enough's enough. I've got to protect the team here. But in the meantime, mistakes are all right. I think mistakes are fine. They're inevitable. Football's a mistakes game. So Brian Keane recently came up with a quote in the light of Eric Ten Hag sacking, where he said, in good teams, the leader holds the players to account.

47:12In great teams, the players hold each other to account. so I get that you set the tone initially of agreeing these standards and getting the players to buy into it how do you then create the environment where players do start to, when somebody's late they challenge them rather than wait for you to do it? But I think the process of top-down guiding it rather than you top-down controlling it, so you're top-down guiding a sort of bottom-up process if you like so you're involving the people here so they feel like, okay there's some responsibility past, we've all agreed it and sometimes they'll need help from me to enforce something.

47:48But in the end, it's part of their, they've contributed to this decision. They've contributed to how we're going to be and how we're going to act. And then it's about identifying the characters and then it's about using recruitment and understanding from a recruitment perspective. Can you identify players that can help with that? Because we think we can magic this thing, but sometimes you need to sign an Adam Lallana or you need to sign a Danny Welbeck or you need to sign a Pascal Gross or you need to understand the role that these guys have in a team because again, back to a team we make the mistake of thinking the start point of everybody is their own self and we're a very individual society anyway and we're getting more and more that way and it's harder for us to to suppress uncomfortable thoughts and being uncomfortable because we're switched on all the time to devices and the discomfort goes away so the downside to that is that no one's focus is on the team but there'll be players that you can develop that will naturally take that stance and if you can create that hierarchy with a group because it's about that yes you're the coach here but you'll need your captain and you need to make sure that your captain is the one that is enforcing all the stuff that you just talked about if the captain is going against what you're saying you've got problems so the captain needs to be either the best player or the one that's acting well he's training hard every day Lewis Dunk was brilliant at that he was the best player on the pitch in training every pass every action was top he wasn't perfect but that was his start point and then you've got the likes of like I said Adam Lallana as a coach I can talk about what you need to do to win football matches in the Premier League but Adam Lallana's won the Premier League and won the Champions League and so has Danny Welbeck so if I can involve them and get them to buy in and they can speak and they can it's almost more powerful to come from Danny Welbeck than it is to come from me because he's been at Man United and he's won the Premier League and he's played for England but I think you need to create that I think creating a hierarchy and having that support within your playing group and facilitating it and allowing them to speak I think it's huge because you're right I think you want to go from a top-down guided team that's been led by you to a self-performing team that directs itself that calls each other out and when we left Brighton Brighton was like the best environment those players that environment was top so it doesn't surprise me that they were fourth in the table when we left.

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52:24Can you give us an example for anyone outside of your world of how they maintain those standards? It's habits. They know how. they know that it's the little bits that you do every single day. There's just a bit to try your best every single day to try to improve. Because in the end, as a football team, you want to try and say, okay, if we want to improve football, we have to play football at 100 % and we need to try our very best. You need everybody fighting against each other in a good way, in a competitive way, because that pushes everybody, that gets the improvement. So that competition has to be there.

52:59That healthy competition has to be there. you have to try and go okay how do we understand how can we get players that can go yes I'm focused on myself and my number one aim is me but I'm starting to understand and I'm starting to have empathy with my teammates who are similar to me but different and we're now fighting for more than just the three points we're more than just it's a transactional relationship I pay you money you pay football for me can you get them to align with the values of the club can you get them to align me the values of what we want to do as a team. And how do you do that?

53:33Well, firstly, you have to be clear of what the team and the organisation want to do. Right. And then you have to communicate, this is what we're about. This is who we are. You know, at Brighton, we went from fourth bottom in the Premier League, playing a certain style that kept Brighton in the Premier League, which was great. But we had to change it. And our narrative was, we want to be a more possession-based team. We want to be a more attacking team. We need to develop players. We need to use younger players. We're going to use players from a different market. So we have to understand that it's going to be a multinational group where self-awareness and empathy are going to be really, really important for us because we need to not be triggered by each other because we don't understand each other because it's tough enough in this league as it is.

54:13So we need to focus on all these things. This has to be our bit. And then once you can communicate that clearly, once then you know, okay, these are the type of people that we need. These are the attributes we need as a footballer. these are the skills we need this is the knowledge we need and also then this is the type of person we need this is the attitude we need this is the thinking we need where are we in that continuum because in any group sometimes you've got high talent and sometimes you've got high attitude psychology and if you're in a really high talented bit maybe you need some good characters and there's good people there to help everything and if you recognise actually the group's not that stable personality wise the attitude's not quite you know the personality character is not quite stable maybe we don't need to take a chance on this another one that needs support in that.

54:58So as soon as you're sort of clear with, you know, your needs of who's coming in, what type of attributes you've got, then you need to know, okay, well, when they come in, how can we support them? Because no one's perfect. There's no football player that's going to come in and solve all your problems. You have to support them. You have to understand, well, what resources do we have to put? Is it training? Is it attitude? Is it psychology? Is it, you know, what support mechanism do we have to put in? What's that training going to look like? what type of day-to-day work do they need to be the best version of themselves because hopefully on the personal level if they've if you've communicated to them when they're coming in okay this is what you bring to this team these are your strengths these are your characteristics we want to make you better by being you the best version of yourself and by the way it lines with what we want to do as well because we want to we want to be you know competing in Europe we want to be a top 10 Premier League club we can see your ambition we can see what you want to do we want to do the same and you're going to help us get there, et cetera, et cetera.

55:57Then I think you end up going, okay, well, it's not a transactional relationship anymore. We're fighting for more than just three points. We're fighting more for, we're fighting for our identities, our strengths, our attributes. And we're starting to understand each other on a human level. And we've got empathy for each other because, well, I thought you were just a centre midfielder from Ecuador, but now I realise that you've a centre midfielder from Ecuador and you've got nine brothers and sisters and you've got to help them and you've got to realise that there's a pressure on you for that. and then actually, yeah, you've just lost your parents and you've had to deal with that.

56:28And all of a sudden, even though they're millionaires and even though they're at the highest level, they're still going, okay, I've got a bit more understanding of who my teammates are now and there's less chance that they're going to be triggered for stuff that is not football. It's hard enough as it is. If you're not together and if you're not fighting for each other, good luck. See, I remember when you lost your job at Chelsea, I immediately looked at the results and was like, well, Graham's just won three of the last five and he's in a Champions League. match against Real Madrid. You know, he's done brilliantly in the Champions League.

56:57Now I kind of look back and think, well, I'm falling into the same old trap there, right, of basing my opinion of your time at Chelsea on results. So with everything you've just told us, do you think the stuff that we didn't see, all of that management behind the scenes, was finally coming together? Or do you feel actually maybe it was just never going to work? I don't know is the obvious answer. I don't know. Like you said, I don't think you can... We lost Aston Villa. That was the game we lost. it was the final game my assistant's friends with Unai and Unai was like you played well you know like pushed us back and you didn't deserve to lose but I think by that point the owners the pressure was that much the noise was that strong that they felt that they had to do something I don't think you can beat Borussia Dortmund over two games in the Champions League if you haven't got people fighting for you and it's just to compete in the Premier League and the Champions League our results in the Premier League weren't good enough so I accept that you know we went through a process where you'd like to think that you get but in the end sometimes it's a results business and people don't care about this context that we're speaking about now.

57:59And I understand that. You know, I'm not complaining about it. I'm trying to attempt to try to put some context on it and tell us my side of the story and maybe, you know, there'll be other things that I've missed out. And like I said, I'm saying 100%, I'm not perfect. So clearly I've made mistakes and clearly I could have done better. But I think the one thing I've always thought about was if it was really me and it was really like, I've got big problems. if I'm sitting here now and after I left Chelsea Chelsea's results just skyrocketed through the table I'm thinking hmm hang on a minute there's something here but you know Frank goes in and it's not easy you can see that Mauricio had all of the back in the pre-season to plan all the pre-season to work with the players no Europe and still took them a long time and the players another round of signings another round of so it doesn't and you're talking about these are top people and it just takes time to stabilise things but in the meantime if people have got an opinion of you that you're too nice or you're not good enough or you're just a Brighton coach and all this sort of stuff it's like then you get written off pretty quickly and like I said you just have to deal with that so you know it's 31 matches and two blocks of 14 games and 17 games defeats I sort of know all the defeats I've got them in my head but like I said in the end you just have to accept that it probably wasn't the right time for me there like it's a great club I obviously wish it well and I hope they succeed of course I do because they gave me the opportunity to work there and I've got a lot of friends from there and like I said I left I think on good time I didn't like I said if I thought I'd lost the dressing room if I thought I'd lost the people at Cobham I'd be saying yeah okay but I didn't I think after the Spurs game there was a bit of concerns there and then we won three beat Dortmund so at that point you're thinking well we're still in the Champions League I sort of thought to myself well because that competition is that competition you never know but then the draw came and we had to beat Bayern Munich and we had to beat City and they just probably thought well that ain't going to happen so out you go and as a coach to not be given the Real Madrid games in the Champions League in the last day of the Champions League to play at the it's like okay that's a tough one but it just shows that that's the brutal nature of football if they don't think you're the right person you're out and that hurt a little bit I must admit a little bit?

1:00:22our lot of course you know it's still like I said when we took over in the Champions League they were bottom we had to qualify we beat AC Milan home and away went away to Red Bull Salzburg and won Dortmund over two legs you know we did some things pretty good and the way that these conversations go at the end does it leave any room for you to kind of fight your corner or ask for another week or say look at least give me the Real Madrid games let me show you what I can do or I feel we're turning the corner or not it didn't feel like that no as soon as they say we feel that it's untenable it's like well okay I wasn't involved in that conversation like I said I'd like to think that they think back and think maybe maybe they acted a little bit quickly would be my I'd like to think that but again I don't know I don't know for sure the club had gone through this process that it probably needed to go through they wanted to change the squad around that's a 20-30 player turnover to be able to get that up and running you know Pep was here for a year and it didn't win in the first year Jürgen Jürgen didn't win Mikel's still trying to win the league if you think that you're just going to come in spend some money and win in the Premier League in an era where we've got the best team at Man City the best coaches the best environments Pep's a genius you know he's the best but I think the club is geared towards supporting him and doing everything they can to help him be the best that he is it still needs the club it still needs the club's conditions to help him I didn't have the credibility.

1:01:51You know, I hadn't won the Champions League. That would have brought you a bit more time if you'd have come from a... I think so. Real Madrid haven't won the Champions League. Yeah, because it's easy in your brain to go, Graham Potter, flippin' heck. You know what I mean? Brighton coach. And that's what it was. And I think, like I said, they're not 100 % wrong because, clearly, they're not. But they're not 100 % right either. But I think it's really powerful that you can now sit here with hindsight and understand that, I mean, you've already used the phrase collateral damage, right? You were put into a situation that probably anyone...

1:02:21I put myself into it. Okay, you put yourself into a situation, unknowingly at the time, that almost anyone would have struggled with, right? But now you can kind of understand actually what went on and see it for what it truly was. And I'm hoping that that time has also given you the chance to truly see what you were in that situation as well. So I guess the question is, with total honesty, all your cards on the table, where do you now feel if you went in again, you would operate differently what are the biggest learnings you've taken from that period to help you in the future? Yeah, and it's a great question.

1:02:56And the bit around the learning bit is, okay, will I ever go into that situation? Will that situation ever happen so I can transfer that learning to this context? And that's the bit that I've struggled with because I'm going, what could I have done? Like I said, there's a Brighton game. I think to myself, yeah, tactically we're wrong there. We try to implement a playing style maybe that is too quickly. you need to maybe take a step back you've got an ideal in your brain this is where I want to get to but you've got to take the reality of where the team is at the moment and it's like where do you take those steps and how do you move methodologically towards that end point in the Brighton game we made a mistake tactically probably went a bit too adventurous with our defensive structure and we lost the game and then all of a sudden trust can be a little bit harder to get because you're like, okay, you've made a mistake.

1:03:52And like I said, I'm pretty sure if you listen to a Pep interview, you'll say, there was this game where I made this mistake and this game where I made this mistake and this game where I made it. And it's fine because he's Pep and he's a genius. But we all do it because it's part of life. It's part of the process of coaching. But obviously what you can't do, you can't afford to lose people if you make too many mistakes, especially when you're fighting for your... So there was those... Do you think you did a bit? well lose some of the players no I don't think lose them but I think you've always got to convince you've always got your job is always to convince players and sometimes winning football matches is the best way to keep everybody's belief and confidence on that path so that's the hardest bit about working in the Premier Leagues working at that level if the results aren't going well how do you keep people with you supporting you ready to fight for you you know all that stuff and yeah you can do it on your own but I think you do need conditions around you as well to help you do that so that's I think that's the challenge and then when I look back I go yeah the reality of it is 12 years of continual work non-stop which involves moving a young family from Sweden to Wales from Wales to England you know both my parents passing away in the first season at Brighton trying to work out am I upset now because of the players or because of the the training or because of the result or because my mum and dad have just died My mum's just lost a seven-year battle with dementia.

1:05:15And, you know, you witness all that. And then six months after that, my dad's gone with cancer quickly. You know, I'm processing all this correctly. You know, my emotions and my brain is, am I using everything in the right way, the resources in the right way? So when you get to the, ironically, you get to Chelsea. And because I didn't give myself that chance to reflect, that pre-season planning bit, okay, what does this team look like? And what's this going to look, and how can I, you know, what signings can we make to give yourself a chance to think because I chose not to and that's on me then you end up in this overload situation which is super challenging with the least chance to succeed I think is I could give myself and that's on me and that's something I have to deal with and it's part of the process and part of the learning.

1:06:04And did the break give you a chance to grieve your parents? Because I think that's one of the biggest challenges you might have had is that the relentlessness of football doesn't necessarily allow you to process that properly. No, and I think that's, I think, you know, speaking to lots of people about it, you know, you go through stages of it and it comes back a couple of days and then you have nice thoughts and whatever else. And yeah, I suppose, because, you know, was I the best version of myself when I needed to be at Chelsea? Probably because of all this stuff. Like, I think to myself now, like, you know, loads more energy, perspective, had chance off the wheel, tried to, you know, connect with some family, connect with friends, put the life a bit more in balance.

1:06:38I'm a better version of myself now than I was when somebody was paying 20 million for us. That's the reality of how I think. But life is life and you make these decisions and you have to try and do these things and it didn't work and it didn't happen. But definitely I feel like 100 % better than what I was on that last picture that you showed me, which I think is what I needed. So people say, oh, you've been out, you've been out. It's like, yeah, but it would have been a mistake for me to go straight back in, even though my ego is wanting to go back in and wanting to go improve and all that stuff.

1:07:09I'm like, no, I need to make sure the next 10 years, the next 12 years, the next 15 years is how I want it to be. So have you turned down jobs since? Yeah, I have. Yeah, for different reasons. Things haven't been right. I have not been ready. What does right look like then now for you? Well, yeah, I mean, that's the exciting bit. You know, I've had the fortune of having a long managerial career at different levels in different countries. you know, the Premier League with Brighton, I think are one of the better, best run football clubs in the Premier League and you have this amazing, crazy, intense experience at Chelsea.

1:07:49So, now I'm just open to anything. I'm not shutting my, shutting my doors to anything. I think I have to connect with the idea of what the club wants and what the people want at the club and whether it aligns that, okay, my values and what I bring and the person I am is the person they want to work with. You know, it has to be, both. And can I come back and ask you that question about values? Because I don't feel we've touched on, we've made reference to that 12-year journey before a lot of where we've censored this conversation. But I think your story is incredible. Thank you. From working at Leeds Met University and doing your master's there to then going to Sweden and taking a fourth division team right the way through to the success that you enjoyed there.

1:08:36what are the values that have stayed the same on that journey so if we'd have met you at Leeds Met then that we'd still recognise from the person today and the second question is and what's different from the man sat in front of us I think my foundation of thinking about whether this is values or not but the foundation for me is as a coach you've got to try and create an environment that is appropriately challenging for the people there that was my first attempt defining what coaching or leadership or environment is. And part of that is I think people need to be connected. I think you have to try and work really hard in a society that's very individual with everyone's selfish needs, which is not a criticism, it is what it is, to try to bring them together, try and connect them so people feel part of it.

1:09:24It's like a family feel. But at the same time, we're in a performance environment, so people need to improve. They want to feel like they're getting better. So from my values, how do you do that? Well, I think you've got to be honest. I think you've got to be authentic. People need to believe what you're saying. You have to have the tough conversations. You have to be able to give the honest feedback. When I started, I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to make a difference, obviously, to me and my life, but also the bit about when I look back, and I think this is the case, you look back on your deathbed.

1:09:55You're not looking back on games of football you've won or trophies you've won. You're looking back on the people that you love and whether you've made a difference. That's ultimately what it is. I think and you can only help footballers to improve you can't improve them all you can do is create an environment you can only help them to improve and I think we lose that sometimes and I probably lost that at times because then you start to get caught up in your own oh you know the team's not playing well it's my fault my wife used to say to me but there are 11 players on the pitch they're responsible as well and you sort of forget that sometimes so I think people should enjoy coming to work if you're in a football team I think there should be an enjoyment but there should also be a responsibility and we create something where I don't want the word happiness I don't think that's a I don't think happiness is the right word I think it's more meaning like we want to we want to be here and we're spending our time away from our family here we're spending our time you know this is our choice to be here like how can we make this the best that we can be because our life is short we're only here for a short period of time why don't let us make it the best thing that we can do that was something I tried at Chelsea it was something I tried at Brighton it was something I was and my coach at university.

1:11:06I think it's something I believe in going forward as well. But the challenge is, the higher you go, it's less about, I suppose it's less about developing and learning. It's more about winning. You have to understand that. So that has to always be the thing. It's all about performance. It's all about what you do and the results you get. But then you should never lose sight of that results business is about a result of someone's knowledge, skills, ability to learn, plus minus their brain. Because you can have the best talent in the world, but the team isn't functioning for whatever reason. Often that's a psychological problem and that's where you can do your work as a coach, I think.

1:11:46What would you say has been the biggest psychological tool that you've used that's made the biggest difference and to a player? I would think just, I think self-awareness is a fantastic start point for anything. and I think we like I said you go on these courses and people say self-awareness self-awareness and everybody yeah yeah self-awareness but for people to actually delve deep into that and really ask yourself the questions of your why and what you're doing and what's your motivation and what makes you happy and what makes you satisfied and what you're getting triggered by and all that sort of stuff I think if that's your start point if that's your foundation then there's also a natural way that the player goes okay he actually sort of cares about me here there is a once the player thinks that that's happening, they're more likely to take the feedback that they don't want to hear.

1:12:34Because the feedback, sometimes, we all want to win. And we all say, oh yeah, but you have to learn and defeats are important. But brain wants us to win because we don't want the discomfort of losing. We don't want the discomfort of failing and admitting that we don't know everything. Because then you have to do some work then. You have to go and do something. You have to go and, I don't know, try and be better. And admit to yourself that you're vulnerable. Admit to yourself that you're not, at the moment as good as you'd like to be and you have to go on this journey of suffering and discomfort to push yourself to improve to improve to improve otherwise what's the alternative is I'm great I've got all the answers I know everything I'm not going to do anything and I'm just going to stay where I am I've loved this conversation because I think to have a really open chat with someone about the importance of empathy and understanding and personal connection when they work in football is important I mean the very fact that when Chelsea let you go one of their issues was you were spending too much time looking after the players.

1:13:28What was the phrase they used? I think it was almost like overly supportive of the business. I can't remember what it was. I mean, how any business, whether it's a sporting business or not, thinks that being overly supportive of people is a negative, right? It's a good indicator of a culture. And I love the fact that you haven't lost that, but you've kind of also, you now really understand that winning is also vital. My final question before we move on to the quick fires is whether there's any fear that you have that what happened at Chelsea dominates people's thoughts rather than the decade plus of brilliant work that you managed to do before that.

1:14:04And actually the world needs to see that you're better for Chelsea, not worse for Chelsea. There's always going to be that. There's always going to be a chance that people write you off. That's just normal. Like I'm pretty sure they wrote Eddie off after he left Bournemouth and they wrote Unai Emery off after he left Arsenal or whatever. I don't think you can worry about that I can't worry about that people my ex-chairman said and he was being a bit obtuse but he said there's no point arguing with stupid people because they're stupid there's no point arguing with them and like I said and they're you know I'm not sitting here thinking I'm perfect and it's perfect whatever else I'm really proud of the journey I've had ultimately football probably there's three categories of coaches there's the winner there's the proven winner which my three promotions and my Swedish Cup isn't going to put me in that category of winner.

1:14:53Or there's the one that hasn't failed yet, the shiny new one that the club wants, that the club, you know, I want to be the next, I'll hire the next Pep, you're the sporting director, you want to hire the next, you know, big coach. And then you've got these coaches that have, you know, that have failed, that have had the mistakes, that have had the setbacks, and have come and have used it positively, and have used it to, you know, be better. And hopefully there's still a market for that type of coach. I'd like to, it'd be sad if there wasn't, because ultimately I think that's what high performance is about it's about being able to get up off the floor and keep going again and learn and adapt and to take the suffering and to take the consequences and to take everything else and go right come on I'm better for it and there absolutely is I mean you were recently linked with the England manager's job right you wouldn't be linked with that job if there wasn't an understanding that you're a great manager of people as well as of football matches well yeah I mean again you can't control speculation all these sorts of stuff and you link with this and you link with that and I've realised that there's a lot in the newspapers that you don't necessarily believe too much but yeah like I said I'm just really proud of the sort of route that I've taken the career that I've had I said it's not easy to go from the fourth tier in Swedish football to the last state in the Champions League with Chelsea so I'm proud of that but it's a like I said it's a continual it's a continual process it's just a yeah I'm not perfect I'll make mistakes I'll just but I'll try and improve and get better and that has been my approach since day one and I'd like to think it's still the same same mindset brilliant before we do our quickfire questions you said right at the very beginning that after leaving chelsea you work with with someone on the psychological side a therapist and you have done for a long time what was the thing they said to you in the low point after leaving chelsea that switched on the lights and really helped you that might be valuable for people watching this well that it's okay to to feel like you're feeling because sometimes you can beat yourself up for feeling that you know you can beat yourself why why can't i get past this why can't I just let this go why can't I just get through it why why am I still holding on to this like you know you're getting stuck and this this is not helpful yeah and you've almost got to be a bit kinder to yourself I know it's just it's just it's just natural it's just normal it's it's part of the process of of getting through it to be a bit kinder to yourself to be less critical try to put things into perspective but to always try to think about the things you you could have done better, but with a kinder view rather than a self-destructive, critical voice to try and go, well, it's just human.

1:17:24We're just human beings and these are normal thoughts. These are normal behaviors. This is a normal process. Take it for what it is. Your thoughts aren't, and that's probably the other bit, the thoughts aren't necessarily true in your brain. So to really think about them and to question them and to not just accept them for what they, you know, told you should have done this and this is bad and you're not good enough and this is your mistake and this is... I can't believe you did that. It's like, well, they're only thoughts. Just to take a break from the thought and the reality to try to question whether what is going on in your brain is the truth and to take some time to question that.

1:18:05I think that's helpful. Brilliant. Right. Are you ready for some quick fire questions?

1:18:12what are the three non-negotiable behaviors that really matter to you honesty authenticity the ability to endure what advice would you give to a teenage graham growing up in solihill that it will be all right if you could go back to one moment in your life where would you go and why? I don't think I'd really want to go back because I'm happy with my life and I'm very, very grateful for my life. But if I was going to go back, I'd go back to a period where my mum and dad were alive and healthy for the obvious reasons, to thank them and to tell them I love them. What's the single best piece of advice you've ever received and why?

1:18:54It was from Tony Poulis and he said, make sure you look after yourself. Because nobody else will. And I think what he meant by that was self-care. Go to the gym. Eat well. Sleep well. And I think that's a really good piece of advice. Self-care. What's your biggest strength? What's your greatest weakness? Maybe my biggest strength would be, I think, empathy. I think I've got sort of a strong feeling for that. And maybe that could be my weakness.

1:19:31because you're sensitive to other people a bit too much sometimes. But I think empathy would be my strength. It's only a weakness if it turns you into a people pleaser. Yeah, exactly. And that's not... Maybe not. I mean, empathy is a strength, definitely. I think the fact that you have empathy, the fact that you can understand and feel for what other people are feeling, it can be emotionally hard harder because it's easy to just not care and sometimes you do care and you've got to really watch that because you don't want to be unhelpful so I still stick with those two type of answers and the final question what's your one golden rule for living a high performance life be kind to yourself accept that you're not going to be perfect and try to find something that is meaningful, that is worth the sacrifice, and then just try your best.

1:20:32Brilliant. Look, thank you so much for coming and chatting to us. No, thank you. It was a brilliant conversation, and I think I honestly get this real overwhelming sense from you that you are ready to go again. I mean, you look brilliant, you look healthy, glowing, and happy, and I think sometimes we only, if someone's only seen one side of the coin, the side of success, right, we assume that person is best equipped for everything, but I think seeing the flip side of that, going into that perfect storm at Chelsea, being given a nigh-on impossible task, and then sort of getting thrown out the other side, without question leaves you as a better football person, but more than that, a better person, I'm sure.

1:21:09And we all wish you the best of luck. Thanks, Graeme. Thank you.

1:21:16Damien. Jake. Before we talk about the conversation with Graeme, let's talk about what he was like before and after the recording, because I kind of thought after everything he'd been through, even though it was a long time ago, that a slightly broken version of Graham Potter would turn up. But it was actually the total opposite. I thought he seemed in brilliant shape. Yeah, definitely. It reminded me of when we met Eddie Howe and Eddie had spoken about taking a year off after Bournemouth's relegation and how he'd used that time to reignite his passion for coaching and being out on the grass and making people better.

1:21:50and I sensed from Graham that the time away from football has reignited his passion to come back and be even better. And you can tell at times he's slightly nervous about talking about what went on at Chelsea because he obviously feels it sounds like sour grapes or looking for excuses and stuff. But I really hope that our audience, and I think they will, will hear that conversation and understand that actually what he is telling us is the stuff that we didn't know about, just how difficult it was. You know, the mental health challenges, the sort of the humiliation that went with a very public sacking and the devastation of creating a career over a 12-year period to have it really blown up in the space of just a few months i just hope people take the conversation as it is intended and he can only tell us what happened you know that's all he's doing is giving us the truth it reminded me of like many years ago i interviewed um a young woman in south africa that had been through quite a horrible traumatic experience and when I spoke to her about how she'd recovered from it she said about she'd worked out how many 15 minutes were in her life and then imagine them as all like small mosaic pieces and she said the traumatic incident that she was describing was just one 15 minute period in what she hoped would be millions of other 15 minutes and she said she wasn't ever going to allow that one corrupt mosaic piece to change the rest of the picture and that sounds like a bit of a weird analogy granted but I think when you look at Graeme's incredible career of you know starting out coaching university football teams to eventually ending up as a Premier League manager in the Champions League that's an incredible journey that he's been on and I'd hate for people to focus on that last experience of Chelsea and forget all the great skills and characteristics that he does have I mean I hate the modern discourse in the game you know a lot of the media conversation where Graeme Potter was written off because he came from Brighton.

1:23:45I think it stinks, basically, and I think it's wrong. And I think part of the reason why he was sacked is not because he came from Brighton, but because people were saying in the national media, oh, he's only come from Brighton, right? But actually what I do hope is that despite that experience that he's been through at Chelsea, that he retains his creativity, his bravery, his ability to see things slightly differently. You know, like all the stuff he did at Ostersen's, which is what makes him unique and makes him different. my only fear is that he isn't brave enough to go there again because he's been burned so badly, you know?

1:24:17Yeah, and I hope what he takes out of it is what, when we spoke to Paul Barber, we spoke about this concept of alignment in any organisation and the three A's of alignment start with the ambition of what you want to achieve as a club. Then you have to measure it in terms of achievement and then finally you have to make sure your everyday actions are aligned to it. And when that's in place, you give yourself the best chance of creating an environment for success to occur and I think when Graham's been successful whether it was at Brighton, Hostessund or whether it was at Swansea there has been that alignment at the clubs that he's been at and I hope he finds somewhere where that's the case again because no doubt he'll thrive Fully agreed I think he's a better man for what he's been through as painful as it was Thanks mate Thank you mate It's been a real privilege to get a Premier League manager like that coming and willing to talk to us so openly I've really enjoyed it.

1:25:13That brings us then to the end of today's episode. On behalf of myself, Damien and the whole team, Graham, we just want to say an enormous thank you to you for trusting us with this conversation. We know it was an important moment for you and your honesty and your clarity and the messages that you brought to this conversation will be so valuable for so many people. And all of us can't wait to see Graham back in management doing what he does best. As always, thank you very much for listening. please do pass this conversation on to someone that you think might be interested. It helps us out enormously.

1:25:43And we'll see you again soon for another episode of High Performance.

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