GRAHAM POTTER

From a football perspective, putting young footballers into art, or singing - you're doing something that's not so familiar. It has helped us build a team and build a spirit.

I had five years in the university sector which was a time where I could make my mistakes, develop with the students and players there. I also worked with the people at the university to put some concept and theory on my own experiences.

I got a job as a football development manager which meant I could coach the students and work with the sports sciences department, all the people in university sector.

Educating players and being part of the community are very important.

The competition that is the Premier League is the biggest challenge in itself. It's my job to get the players to believe that they can go in to every match and win.

We are our own worst enemies and as a coach you can help people recognise that, raise their self-awareness and then see if they change or do anything about it.

Any coach in my era will reference or look at Guardiola's teams. If you look at the style of play, he has had a huge influence on football. And he has innovated it again.

If you identify those guys - something we have done in the past - who are not as valued in the current market for whatever reason and you look to get them to play at a higher level than where they have come from. That's how you develop the team.

Players are fundamentally the same - regardless of what they earn. They want to improve and want to be part of something.

We want our teams to be able to entertain the supporters - they're such an important part of the industry, sometimes forgotten a bit. At the Amex they'll be very important for us. So we'll try and entertain. At the same time I know we're in the results business. I'm not naive.

All I can promise is I'll do my very best. I'll try as hard as I can.

Like everybody I needed to learn to be a coach, I needed to practise that and make mistakes in a decent environment where I could develop myself and not fear I was going to lose my job.

I'd read a classics book on the bus when I was at York.

My playing career that was a bit up but mostly down. I played in the Premier League at Southampton but most of my career was in the lower divisions.

I was only picking up short-term contracts in the lower leagues. I thought that rather than the game kick me out, I'd be proactive about it.

My situation, and my opportunity, was the fourth tier in Swedish football and a place that nobody really wanted to go to. Of course it's turned out well for me.

But the concept that it's important to understand the individual and the person, as well as the footballer, is a helpful concept, regardless of the competition.

I was at Leeds Carnegie, the ninth tier. And I was coaching students. There would have been hundreds of managers with more experience. So I had to go to the fourth tier of Swedish football, pretty much in the Arctic circle.

You make mistakes at the results end of football and you can be out on your ear pretty quickly.

My unglittering football career came to a halt at the age at 30, and I had to embark on a coaching career: 14 years of hard work and sacrifice, learning and mistakes.

The profile is to find if someone can perform in the Championship and help you win, and also play in the Premier League because that has to be the goal.

I remember doing my first coaching sessions at Macclesfield, when I was still playing, and I was just terrible. I felt really uncomfortable standing in front of people, and it felt very odd. It was not something I was naturally comfortable with at all.

I want to take people out of their comfort zones and teach them to rely on their team-mates.

But any squad needs players who are hungry to do well, with their careers ahead of them. That's important for the dynamic of the group, but it also needs a balance of guys who have seen it, done it and have that quality of leadership. It is all about the quality of the player.

I needed to learn to be a coach initially. I think if I'd gone into professional football when I stopped playing when I was 30 years old I'd have failed because I'd have made too many mistakes because I had no real idea at that time.