Graham Potter has welcomed new England head coach Thomas Tuchel as a “great appointment” but said home-grown managers are “absolutely” good enough to win major international trophies.
Englishman and former Chelsea boss Potter, 49, was linked with the Three Lions job but did not confirm if he had been interviewed for the role.
Tuchel, who Potter succeeded as the Chelsea manager in September 2022, was named the third non-British permanent boss of the England men’s team earlier this month.
“They’ve made a really good appointment for a coach that is obviously successful, and has won lots of things,” Potter told the BBC’s Planet Premier League podcast.
“It feels like that was the movement towards how we need a winning coach, a top coach that can help these top players. [For that] Thomas is a fantastic coach and a great appointment.”
Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham said “approximately 10 people” were interviewed, including “some English candidates”, before German Tuchel was given the job.
Potter refused to state if he was one of those candidates, saying he has “had conversations with quite a few people”.
England Under-21 head coach Lee Carsley took over the senior role on an interim basis and was linked to getting the job permanently, while Newcastle manager Eddie Howe said he had received “no contact from the FA”.
Wolves boss Gary O’Neil, one of three English managers in the Premier League, said English football only had itself to blame for the FA’s decision to go for an overseas manager, while adding he had “no issues” with Tuchel’s appointment.
Potter guided Brighton to their then highest-ever Premier League finish of ninth during the 2021–22 season and was rated as one of the top English coaches before lasting less than seven months in charge of Chelsea.
No current English coach has won the Champions League, but Tuchel won Europe’s biggest club competition with Chelsea in 2021.
“Do I think that an English coach can win the World Cup or a major trophy? Yes, absolutely I do,” said Potter, who is yet to return to management after his Chelsea departure.
“You look at the previous Euros winners – the Spanish coach [Luis de la Fuente] I don’t think was a Champions League-winning coach?
“I don’t think the Argentinian coach [Lionel Scaloni, who won the World Cup in 2022] was a Champions League-winning coach?
“But at the same time, I understand if that’s the criteria [being a winner at club level].”
A ‘challenge’ for aspiring EFL coaches
England have had only English full-time managers in the years since Italian and Champions League-winning coach Fabio Capello guided the Three Lions from 2007 to 2012, a stint that ended without silverware.
Gareth Southgate, who did not win any major trophies as a club coach, took charge of England in 2016 and reached two European Championship finals.
Potter led Swedish side Ostersund from the fourth tier into the top flight with three promotions in five seasons and won the 2017 Swedish Cup, before spending time in the Championship with Swansea City.
He believes judging managers on just winning is “quite a binary measurement”, making the pathway a “challenge” for coaches coming up the English Football League [EFL] pyramid.
“Football looks at whether you win or lose and if you win, you’re good and if you lose, you’re not very good,” Potter said.
“If you’re managing an EFL team, it’s a fairly English-based side, and then you go into the Premier League, and it’s more multinational, things like playing style then is a challenge.
“After success for coaches in the EFL, do teams in the Premier League look at that and go ‘OK, yeah, that’s a good barometer for us to employ’?
“At the moment, it doesn’t seem that way.”