Alan Shearer tells West Ham they did something ‘terrible’ before sacking Graham Potter

Add as preferred source on Google

Over the weekend, West Ham United made the decision to replace Graham Potter with former Nottingham Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo.

Despite his best efforts, Graham Potter was unable to turn things around at West Ham, and results haven’t been good enough during his tenure.

However, any Potter fans might insist that the former Brighton & Hove Albion and Chelsea boss didn’t have the right platform to succeed in east London.

Potter’s win percentage at West Ham was very poor, but it perhaps reflected the club’s lack-lustre recruitment over the past few years, even prior to his appointment.

But either way, West Ham will now enter a new era under Nuno, who managed to guide Forest into Europe last term.

Alan Shearer left fuming with how West Ham handled Graham Potter’s dismissal

That being said, Alan Shearer voiced his thoughts on how West Ham went about Potter’s dismissal on ‘The Rest Is Football’ podcast.

Shearer called West Ham’s handling of the situation ‘terrible’, and the pundit felt as if the Hammers failed to show Potter the necessary respect during his final day or so in charge.

Asked about how West Ham sacked Potter, Shearer replied: “I thought that was terrible. I really did. I mean, they’ve obviously been speaking to Nuno or Nuno’s people for some days.

“And the reason they’ve just shafted him, Potter and put him out to the presses, I guess, because they weren’t able to come to an agreement with Nuno on the Friday. 

READ MORE: West Ham already have a player who thinks Nuno Espirito Santo is a ‘very good’ manager

“So, they thought, we’ll just send you out to the press conference, we’ll feed you to the wolves, we’ll let them ask all these horrible questions about memes and all of these things, and then on Saturday morning, we’ll give you a call and sack you.

“I mean, I guess you go into football management knowing that it’s a horrible business at times, and if you’re going to be treated like that, then you have to, I guess, understand and get it and just put up with it.

“But I thought that was a terrible thing to do, was to put him in front of the press on Friday.

“But the results weren’t good enough, you know, and I do think it’s a tough club to manage, it looks from the outside, a difficult club to manage.”

Nuno Espirito Santo has a much stronger record than Graham Potter

Despite how West Ham handled the change, it does seem as if switching Potter for Nuno could be the right move.

Potter had a record of 0.92 points per match at West Ham, a level Nuno has never stooped to at any club throughout his career.

Harry Redknapp praised Nuno in the past, and following his time at Forest, the former Wolverhampton Wanderers manager is a popular figure across the Premier League. 

Nuno used both a 3-4-3 and a 4-2-3-1 at the City Ground, and it will be interesting to see how he immediately adapts to West Ham’s squad.

Perhaps Nuno will rely on his trusted 3-4-3 to begin, especially considering that he’s starting life as Hammers boss with a tricky trip to face Everton on Merseyside.