Graham Potter turned the tide in Sweden in a figurative and footballing sense.

But the man Albion have targeted as their managerial choice also changed the direction of the traffic, literally, when it came to the big European nights.

Potter is top of the hitlist for the Seagulls as they hunt a successor for the sacked Chris Hughton.

He has left a good impression in West Glamorgan after taking a young Swansea City to tenth in the Championship.

But you will hear even better things about him if you go to northern Sweden and ask the people of Ostersund.

Potter took a newly-formed club from the fourth tier to the top flight and European football.

He took on Arsenal believing his side could win.

And, as Niclas Lidstrom from the Ostersunds FK media department recalls, he unwittingly turned one of the bus routes around.

Lidstrom told The Argus: “We are a small town. The town community is 65,000 people and the population of the region is 120,000.

“When we were in the second division and went from semi-professional to professional, we were getting 3,000 people.

“Last year, our average was 6,450, or 10% of the town population.

“The closest big towns are 200km away. There’s Sundsvall to the east and Trondheim, in Norway, to the west.

“We are a town in the middle of nowhere in the north of Sweden. It’s winter here for seven or eight months of the year.

“Back in the 1990s, I used to go by bus over to Trondheim to watch Rosenborg play in European competition.

“I’ve noticed nowadays it is the other way around. The buses started coming from Trondheim to Ostersund for people to see European football.”

Potter has caught the eye of Tony Bloom as the chairman considers who should help Albion rebuild to a degree after their near-miss with Premier League relegation.

He certainly knows about rebuilding – or building from scratch.

Lidstrom said: “The club was formed in 1996 as an amalgamation of other local clubs.

“People didn’t like the new club. It took us 15 years for the fans to accept and adopt the new club.

“I think Graham struggled with this for two or three years.

“It was really hard for him to understand and make the fans and the people around the town accept this new club and this new guy from England.

“It’s hard to build a football club here but our former chairman was looking at what he can do.

“Graham had some ideas of how to play football with high pressure, with a lot of the ball, build from the back through goalkeeper to defence to midfield to the strikers.

“He started to find players who could do that for him.

“We used to call them The Leftovers because they were players other clubs didn’t want.

“In the first year, he got them to the third division, which was okay. The next year, we go from third to second.

“Now that is really good. We had never played at that level.

“Graham had found a player from Mexico, a player from Ghana, plenty of players from different levels and different countries.”

Potter supervised the switch from semi to fully professional.

Part of that was appointing Kyle Macaulay as the club’s first ever full-time dedicated talent scout.

Macaulay has followed Potter to Swansea and it would appear could be part of a move to the Amex, should it happen.

Lidstrom said: “Kyle found the players who Graham liked. He was really good.

“Some players had been students or had part-time jobs.”

Potter mainly used a 4-4-2 system, albeit with a few back-up options.

But that did not make team selection predictable.

Lidstrom said: “You never knew before a match what line-up he would play.

“He changed the team all the time. He wanted to see players in different positions”

The Potter secret was out on these shores when Ostersunds drew Arsenal in the Europa League.

Arsene Wenger sent out a strong side and they were 3-0 up inside half an hour.

That remained the score until full-time and the Swedish club then pulled off a shock 2-1 success at the Emirates.

Asked whether Potter had believed his team could knock the Gunners out, Lidstrom said: “Oh yes! He thought we could beat Arsenal.

“He was thinking we had a big chance to beat them and he wasn’t afraid of them. But I think the players were afraid of Arsenal.

“The first 20 minutes were really bad. But, after 20 minutes, he changed tactics and we did a good game.”

The other thing people in this country know about Potter is his trick of sending players to do amateur dramatics.

Lidstrom said: “Graham was thinking about this and spoke to the former chairman about it.

“If football players can do things outside their comfort zone, will it make them better players?

“Maybe 90% thought it was a good idea and went along with it. Maybe the rest thought ‘This isn’t what I want to do’.

“Graham is a really nice man, really polite. I visited him in Swansea.

“But I know the family were really well settled here in Ostersund.

“Even though Swansea was a good move and it was a lot more money, it was by no means certain he would go because the family were so happy here.

“The couple had twins, so now have three children, and they were really enjoying themselves in Ostersund.

“Graham can speak Swedish and gave his press conferences in Swedish.”