West Ham loanee Carlos Soler is loving life below Graham Potter and hopes to study from him as he eyes a future profession in administration… having already received La Liga on his laptop computer!

Carlos Soler stepped off the train at Stratford station and joined the hordes of West Ham fans shuffling their way beyond Westfields shopping centre, past the big red slide and towards the London Stadium.

Suspension had ruled the Hammers midfielder out of the Premier League clash against Brighton in December so the Spaniard, on loan from Paris Saint-Germain, thought he’d pop along to watch the game as a fan.

Along he walked, this Spain international and former team-mate of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar, surrounded by West Ham fans muttering away about the team’s form and what the future held for then-manager Julen Lopetegui.

None of them noticed the player in their midst.

‘They didn’t recognise me,’ says Soler with a smile. ‘It was nice, I enjoyed it. It’s not a problem to take photos with fans because when I was in the Valencia academy, I wanted pictures with the first-team players but, in this moment, I preferred not to be recognised so I can go with them and experience matchday like a fan.’

Those fans have not had much to enjoy this season but, at last, under new manager Graham Potter are starting to feel something they have not for a while: hope.

A draw at Aston Villa last time out in a much-improved performance after Potter’s first full week of training and now West Ham go to Chelsea on Monday night with spring in their step.

‘We should have won,’ insists Soler. ‘We have to continue like this.’

Soler is brilliant company, charming and eloquent, as he talks about everything from how Potter has revitalised West Ham, to his love of tennis and countrymen Carlos Alcaraz and Rafa Nadal, to his desire to become a head coach one day, being a virtual one leading hometown club Valencia to the Spanish title on Football Manager, and how much he enjoys living in his London apartment near Tower Bridge with his girlfriend Marta and taking trains around the city.

They went to the Royal Albert Hall for the first time last week to watch Cirque du Soleil.

‘It was beautiful,’ he says. ‘People don’t know me so much, so it’s good for me. I can go by train like a normal person and enjoy London. Have a walk, have a coffee. I like it.’

He’s not tried pie and mash yet, nor is he too enamoured with the English attempts at paella that he sees people eating at street food markets.

‘Pie and what?! I haven’t tried this but I live near Borough Market and I have to say, sorry about the paella here,’ says Soler. ‘I haven’t tried it but just watching it…if they like this so if they come to Valencia, they’re going to love it.’

Soler joined West Ham on the final day of the summer transfer window on loan from PSG, whom he joined in 2022 from Valencia. It took him a while to settle, on and off the pitch, living out of a hotel for a month and finding it hard to get rhythm in such a physical, demanding league but has shown in recent weeks his quality and netted his first goal for the club in the victory over Fulham.

The 28-year-old grew up watching other diminutive Spanish midfielders take the Premier League by storm, idolising the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Juan Mata, David Silva and Santi Cazorla. He hopes he can continue in their mould.

‘It was not easy because you have to change a lot of things, not just in football but in life that people don’t know,’ says Soler. ‘It’s normal because fans just know about the matches but there are so many things more than football.

‘I knew that I had to adapt my game to the Premier League. There is more intensity, crazy matches. The second half was like that against Villa. It was one side, another side, one side, another side.

‘I had to fit in with the idea of the coach. I started to play but then Julen was sacked. I looked at that as an opportunity with the new coach.

‘I saw that Graham had confidence in me. He likes the style of football that I play. That’s very important for a player.’

It was former boss Lopetegui that was integral in bringing him to the club yet it’s the ways of new man Potter that has begun to capture his imagination.

‘I’s always difficult to have one manager and the next day have another manager,’ he adds Soler. ‘I think the new coach has good ideas. We are happy with the new coach. I like the football he wants to play.

‘He wants to attack but not straight away. Go to the right, go to the left, go to the right again because there is a space there. We have to mix these situations with going straight to the goal. In England, fans love it when we go direct. Here at the London Stadium, sometimes if we play slow, people don’t like that. We know that, but we have to move the other team around first. I like this style of football, like Spanish football. The position in the field, the structure, the connections between us.

‘I had seven or eight different managers in my career and from all of them I had so many good things. If in the future I want to be a manager too, I have had a lot of good managers so I learned about them.’

Soler’s played under the likes of Luis Enrique at PSG and former Watford and Leeds boss Javi Gracia. He was also on the bench for Gary Neville’s penultimate game as Valencia manager but insists he cannot remember much about it.

Potter, meanwhile, has gone about making his changes, both on the pitch and around the training ground, tactically and in how he communicates to his players.

When he took over, Potter held a frank clear-the-air discussion with his squad about what had gone wrong.

‘We needed this. You have to be honest always. That’s the way to improve. When you’re not good on the pitch, you have to tell the truth because it’s not going to work.

‘He likes to speak with players,’ says Soler. ‘I’ve spoken to him two or three times. In football sometimes you don’t have confidence to talk but I like it when the manager tells me where I have to improve. In Spain we say, “Hablando se entiende la gente”, talking people understand each other.’ That relationship with a coach, or with his staff or good.

‘He’s changed a lot of things with the position on the field. If we play against a team that play with two strikers, maybe we play with three in the back to be more compact.’

‘We watch a lot of videos of our rivals. Then on the pitch we train how to beat them. So many things that I can’t tell you more because Enzo Maresca is going to watch this and I don’t want that!’

Soler’s loan is up in the summer and the club have an option to make it permanent. For as open as he’s been all through the interview, it’s the one moment he closes up a little when asked about his future an whether he sees himself here for the long run.

‘I don’t know about that. If I tell you one thing, maybe in two months it’s going to be different. I don’t know, I like London, I like playing for West Ham, I like the fans, I like people here and I’m very happy. That’s all I can tell you right now.’

As the interview draws to a close, Soler is asked to reflect on the season he spent playing with Messi at PSG in 2022-23. What was that like?

‘He’s the best player ever,’ says Soler. ‘He’s the GOAT. I’ll always remember when I met him in the dressing room for the first time. I played with him, Neymar, Mbappe, Ramos, Marco Verratti. Every day was crazy. These star players. They are normal people but they can’t be like me and take public transport!’