Why Graham Potter really is perfect for Man United or England - forget what happened at Chelsea's burning circus

As we approach the first anniversary of Graham Potter’s last stand, I’ve found myself thinking back to a conversation we once shared in his office at Swansea City. That was in March 2019, so a good while before his journey of 1,000 miles was interrupted by a faceplant into the great wall of Chelsea.

The immediate possibilities that afternoon centred on Swansea’s FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City, which was his first major game in British football, but his future and past were where the curiosity really lived.

Being honest, there was nothing overly original in the idea – he’d been a subject of intrigue ever since it emerged years earlier that he was going well at an outpost near the arctic circle. What might this English fella go on to do? How high might he climb from such a colourful beginning?

We know his story well enough to skip a full rehash here, but Potter remains the only elite manager I’ve met who could tell you the temperature at which a ball freezes in Sweden (-18C), the logistics of coaching in China, and the nuances of the women’s game in Ghana.

It was a fascinating afternoon in the company of an adventurer who had taken the road less travelled and was self-deprecating at every turn in his telling of it.

Naturally, the sense of wonder has long since been overtaken by events. He stepped up marvellously at Brighton, fell traumatically at Chelsea, and the unknown is where and when he will resurface.

We started asking about that soon after his dismissal on April 2, 2023, and we are still asking it around a manager who, to this day, is trying to find his place in the game. Wandering and searching; doubted by others and convinced in himself.

Manchester United? That’s possible, or more so than it is England,