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Sitting at a press conference prior to his international debut with England, Swansea City midfielder Jonjo Shelvey decided to suggest that his club manager Garry Monk should eventually replace Roy Hodgson as the next manager of the English national team. His comments were dully noted and reported in sports sections of newspapers, sports talk shows, and online sports blogs.
Few people who heard about the comments thought that they were the delusional ravings of a mad man. After all, Monk was a hard working Englishman having significant success in his first managerial role. Why did he not deserve to have his hat thrown in the ring?
Nobody could have guessed that less than five moths later Monk would no longer be managing Swansea City, while Shelvey would be playing for Newcastle United. Monk was fired in December following a dismal run of form that saw the Swans sitting in the bottom three. Shelvey was sold to fellow relegation rivals Newcastle United after having a falling out with the club.
The sale of Shelvey to a fellow relegation rival raised quite a few eyebrows in the footballing world, not the least when he set up both of the goals in his debut for Newcastle. His play helped to propel Newcastle above his former club in the standings.
So how did it come to this? The meteoric rise of Swansea City from near oblivion in the lowest depths of English professional football to admired and often envied Premier League staple is truly amazing. Swansea was down in the depths of the fourth division as recently as 2003. In fact, the Swans barely preserved football league status by defeating Hull City 4-2 on the final day of the 2003 season.
A mere eight seasons later Swansea crashed the Premier League party, having changed ownership several times, gone through insolvency, and swapped the dismally dilapidated Vetch Field for the much larger and palatial Liberty Stadium.
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All of this was achieved by a consortium of four local businessmen their American friend and the Swansea Supporters’ Trust. The trust owns 20% of the club and has an elected representative who serves on the board of directors for the club. This partnership purchased the club for £20,000 and have turned their small investment into one of the top thirty highest-earning football clubs in the world.
On the field, the Swans were also working efficiently. Having secured their status in the football league through the efforts of they secured promotion to League One under Kenny Jackett. After his resignation in 2007, former Swansea player Roberto Martinez was hired to try his hand at management, despite his lack of experience at the age of 33. Martinez proved that he was an able manager as he led the Swans to the Championship division after winning League One in his first season at the club.
Martinez instilled an elegant passing style of play in a league that wasn’t exactly known for this particular quality. After making the remark that he would only leave Swansea if he was “Forced out,” Martinez took a job with then Premier League side Wigan Athletic. His sudden change of opinion on managing at Swansea angered many of the club’s supporters.
The managerial change did not doom the Swans as they managed to remain in the Championship under the leadership of Paulo Sousa. Sousa was replaced by Northern Irishman Brendan Rodgers after only one season at the helm. Rodgers led the Swans all the way to the playoff final where they defeated Reading 4-2 behind a hat-trick from Scott Sinclair. Following a successful run with the Swans Rodgers left to become the next manager at Liverpool.
Michael Laudrup would take charge of Swansea in the premiership for a little longer than season before being replaced by player Gary Monk as manager. Monk who had previously been the team captain and a member of the squad for over a decade was now the manager. Just about everyone who watched the Premier League was absolutely stunned by the decision to appoint someone who had literally just been a member of the squad as manager. The novice manager survived a highly publicized incident which may have involved the throwing of bricks at a particular player to guide the Swans to their highest league finish in 34 years.
The success of the club was no doubt in part to the fantastic play of Shelvey and Gylfi Sigurdsson. However, the success of monk was short lived. After a run of terrible results left the Swans in the relegation zone, Monk was fired by chairman Hew Jenkins.
It is safe to assume that the promise of large sums of money from the new TV deal signed by the Premiere League had something to do with the firing of Gary Monk. The money which will be coming into all clubs in the Premiere League next season is enough to completely turn around the fortunes of any team. It was not something that club chairman Hew Jenkins thought the Swans could afford to miss out on. However, unlike in previous years the Swans don’t seem to have a plan of where to go next. It is almost as if the team is flying by the seat of its pants.
The Swans launched a borderline comical attempt to sign hipster favorite Marcelo Bielsa before calling the whole thing off. Alan Curtis, a longtime assistant manager and club legend, was appointed caretaker manager for the remainder of the season only to take the backseat to Italian manager Francesco Guidolin hired a few weeks later. Guidolin signed a contract through the remainder of the season with an option to renew depending on how the club preforms. The decision to only sign for the remainder of the season shows the instability that is now plaguing Swansea. Jenkins and the rest of the Swansea City board may be once again working their magic, but from the outside things appear to be quite the chaotic storm.
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The fortune of the Swans has be changing for the better following the appointment of Guidolin as coach on January 18. Since he was brought in as coach, Swansea have earned 14 points from 8 games. The most memorable of those 8 points coming from a 2-1 win over Arsenal at the Emirates. This good run of form has seen Swansea move out of the relegation zone.
Despite this recent run of form, the Swans are not out of the danger zone yet. There is a lot of football left to be played and if Swansea are not careful they could still see themselves drop back into the relegation zone before the season is out. However, it looks like one of Europe’s most well run teams may have just escaped the pitfalls of relegation by doing what they do best: bargain hunting for talented players and managers.
