Graham Potter insists he never considered leaving Brighton amid Everton links
Brighton and Hove Albion manager Graham Potter was linked with the Everton job all summer, but the Toffees opted for Rafa Benitez in the end.
The Goodison Park outfit were looking for the perfect candidate to replace Carlo Ancelotti after the Italian walked out on them to return to Real Madrid.
According to The Athletic, Potter has admirers at Everton and was looked at before majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri opted for the controversial appointment of Benitez instead.
The Brighton boss has now responded to the Toffees links in a chat with Sky Sports, insisting they were just rumours.
“It was just speculation,” Potter told Sky Sports.
“It’s stuff to fill the newspapers and the 24-hour media we have to live with. I was on my holidays, resting up and getting ready for this season and trying to learn and develop. It’s just part of football.
“I said at the end of last season I was two years into a six-year contract so there’s a lot of time that we still need to be together to carry on improving. There’s a lot of work we need to finish. So it’s about focusing on that.”
Fair enough
We do not expect the English manager to admit that he was keen on the Everton job, and his loyalty surely lies with his current club just like it should be.
The Athletic reported in July that those close to Potter believed Brighton had moved to tie him down to a new long-term deal in 2019 amid rumblings of interest from Everton.
The website added that he was never a strong contender for the job, though, as he does not have the sort of global standing that Moshiri was looking for in a manager.
Potter joined Brighton on a four-year deal in May 2019 from Swansea City, but was handed a two-year contract extension just six months later out of the blue.
Everton were apparently ready to part ways with Marco Silva at the time he was handed a new deal, eventually doing so in December 2019 after a 5-2 loss to Liverpool left the club in 18th place in the Premier League table.
Benitez got the Toffees job despite his Liverpool past, and he is now under a lot of pressure to deliver as fans prepare to return to Goodison Park.
It is too early to say whether the decision-makers at Everton got this decision wrong or right, and we are going to let the results speak for themselves.
The Spaniard has a lot of work to do to turn this group of players into regular winners, though, and Saturday’s 4-0 loss to Manchester United in the last game of pre-season would have given him a perfect idea of the magnitude of the job ahead.
In other Everton news, France-born powerhouse wants to quit club after Toffees approach.
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