Potter won’t rest on his laurel and cardy

GRAHAM POTTER looks like the kind of man who would be excited by the prospect of wearing a new cardigan.

Staid, dull, quite boring – he probably thumbs through the Next catalogue during his spare time searching for sartorial inspiration.

You can imagine him enjoying time in his garden and probably grumbling at his missus when the kids trample on the vegetable patch.

These, obviously, are figments of my imagination.

What isn’t, however, is the fact Potter is establishing himself as an elite football manager.

So, if England are going to lose Gareth Southgate, then this middling man from middle England – he was born just a few miles from Meriden in the geographical heart of the country – should be on the shortlist.

Current Three Lions head coach Southgate “doesn’t want to overstay his welcome” and is distancing himself from signing a new deal after the Qatar World Cup, which is little more than 12 months away.

And if that impasse continues, the FA will soon be searching for a successor – and there aren’t too many who fit the bill.

Potter (right) does.

The wags out there will be laughing, saying he’s never won anything. Neither had Southgate, yet he’s our most successful boss since

Sir Alf Ramsey.

In fact, the 46-yearold ticks a lot of other boxes that will appeal to the Wembley decision-makers.

Brighton play a pleasing brand of football – a style the suits are keen to embrace, despite the fact the country hasn’t yet cracked it.

His background story is one to inspire, too.

He has worked his way up after becoming the director of football at Hull University while completing a degree and his Master’s.

What happened next is the stuff of footballing fairytales. He took a club languishing mid-table in the Swedish Fourth Division to defeat of Arsenal at the Emirates in a Europa League tie.

The only surprise was that his rise took so long to be noticed. It wasn’t even an English club that took a chance on him – Swansea did.

And within 12 months he had been spirited away to the South Coast.

Brighton director of football Dan Ashworth didn’t take long to recognise Potter’s was a talent worth nurturing. He probably viewed a re-run of Swansea’s FA Cup fifthround tie against Manchester City in March 2019 and decided there and then that Chris Hughton had to go.

Away from the pitch, Potter has tip-toed through the public minefield of the modern-day media landscape without setting off any booby-traps. And that was one of the reasons why Southgate (left) was a shoo-in. He was a safe pair of hands after Sam Allardyce’s big mouth cost him.

Now, your correspondent isn’t blinded by the current state of the Premier League table, as healthy as it looks for Brighton.

There’s zero chance of the Seagulls elbowing their way to the top of the tree, a la Leicester City of five years ago.

But there’s every possibility they’ll finish in the top half, despite losing Ben White, a £50million centre-half, to Arsenal on the eve of the season. And that’s as high as they’ve ever been.

If Potter’s progress continues into next season, he has to be under consideration. An English tracksuited coach who has flourished among the elite and shown impressive results from grassroots up, with no baggage to boot.

Never mind waistcosts, in years to come cardigans might be all the rage instead.