Howe...
I wouldn't knock anything he did in terms of getting Bournemouth to the PL and I also wouldn't overlook that it was probably an achievement to keep them there for five year, however, when you look at the numbers the actual improvement he made in the 5 years they were in the PL was negligible. Defensively in particular there was just no progression:
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Potter...
In the two seasons before Potter took over, Brighton performed more or less in line with their xG (in fact in their first season up they would have finished 18th with a par xG score). In the two seasons since Potter took over, the underlying stats have risen dramatically. Last season, even a par xG score would have had them in 5th place in the league. They underperformed by an incredible amount vs their xG. The chances of them doing this are less than 0.1%, that's how unlikely it was. So you either say they were incredibly unlucky or you say their forwards couldn't finish a bag of Quavers, or (most likely) the truth lies somewhere in the middle - he improved dramatically on his first season in the underlying metrics and that in turn was an improvement on the numbers under Hughton. His football is easy on the eye, but it's the numbers which make you stop and pay more attention.
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Now, I get that data isn't everyone's bag on here and that's fine and xG itself is more rudimentary than some of the stuff being used today by the likes of Liverpool, Brentford, Leipzig etc but I'd venture that even if you use it as a vague reference point, it still sticks out that there's something about Potter worth looking twice at.
