After turning 50 earlier this week, Head Coach Graham Potter is hoping for one more birthday celebration when West Ham United travel to Ipswich Town for their final clash of the 2024/25 Premier League season on Sunday.
The Hammers are looking to bounce back to winning ways following last weekend’s narrow 2-1 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest, and sign off for the summer with the sort of performance and result that saw them triumph 2-0 away at UEFA Europa League runners-up Manchester United earlier this month.
Victory at Portman Road could lift the east Londoners up one place to 14th in the top-flight standings, if results go their way, and Potter made it clear in his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon that he is firmly targeting the full share of the spoils.
Though Kieran McKenna’s Tractor Boys succumbed to immediate relegation back to the EFL Championship in late April, having previously won back-to-back promotions, the Irons will be wary of the quality that has powered them past the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea this term.
Certainly, they will be wanting to provide their supporters with a positive display in their final outing in the Premier League, while top scorer Liam Delap will be looking to add his impressive tally of 12 strikes.
Also among the topics discussed with members of the external media, Potter reflected on some of the things he’s learnt while in the West Ham hotseat, more impressive work behind the scenes and Jarrod Bowen’s reaction to being left out of the latest England squad.
Hoping for one more birthday present
It was a good day. I opened some presents with the family, went out for some lunch and just spent time with some family and friends.
As the years go by, I think you're always learning about yourself. You’re thinking about how you can improve, and what you want to do with the rest of your life.
You’re thinking about how important your family is, how important it is to be in a job that you're passionate about, that you work with good people and that you understand that the road to anything meaningful has ups and downs. There are periods where you have to suffer, you have to dig in and then the moments when it goes well, which is when it's all worth it.
Building behind the scenes
There was disappointment after the game last week, which is normal because the result wasn’t what we wanted. We made sure we gave the players some time to clear their heads and recover, and since then we've had a good couple of days of training.
The boys are looking forward to the final match. As always when you get to this point it feels like it’s been a long season, but it’s just one more push and we'll do everything we can to win the game.
As always we’ll be looking to build on the things we've been doing well. We need to be competitive and solid, but we also need to be respectful of the challenge in front of us.
It’s their last Premier League game, at home, so they’re going to be wanting to finish off in a good way, but as always we want to play with purpose and positivity, and try to win the match.
Eyes up the table
Every game in the Premier League is important, and we want to win this one to help us finish as high in the table as we possibly can.
A win would help us move up a place, if the other results go our way, but regardless we want to go for it. After that, we’ll look at things and assess how we can carry on improving going forward.
No new injury issues
We're pretty much as we were, in terms of team news.
We’re focused on trying to win the match, so I don’t think mixing it up with one game to go makes sense. We want to be consistent with what we’ve been trying to do, attack the game as best we can, and go for the win.
Impressed by Ipswich
They won back-to-back promotions, and I think if you look at where the club was when Kieran McKenna came in, compared to where they are now, you can see that they’ve been on an amazing journey.
They’ve had a setback, but they’re well equipped and sometimes that’s when you learn and get stronger, ready to come again.
Eyes on Delap
He's a strong, physical, direct centre-forward, who is probably a little bit old school.
He uses his body well, but has quality at the same time. You can see he’s well educated, and now he’s benefiting from Kieran McKenna’s help. Individually, he’s had a good season.
Bowen eyeing strong finish
It’s not up to me to pick the England squad, and I have full respect for Thomas Tuchel.
It’s a difficult decision I’m sure, and obviously we’re disappointed for Jarrod, but we’ll support him and he’ll carry on doing what he’s doing for us.
He'll naturally be disappointed of course, because every player wants to play for their country, but he's a professional, he accepts the decision, he's trained well with us and he'll be looking forward to the game on Sunday.
