Swansea City have begun ‘informal’ talks with head coach Carlos Carvalhal about signing a new contract at the Liberty Stadium, but should the club be wary about previous manager deals before handing out a new long-term deal to the Portuguese.
BBC Sport are reporting this here
Some fans might instantly react by insisting that he deserves a new contract for the short-term impact he has made since he arrived at the end of last year, but we’ve had our fingers burnt in the past, and not just the once either.
You can’t blame us for hesitating slightly when you hear news that we’re talking to Carvalhal about a new deal. Francesco Guidolin, Bob Bradley and Paul Clement – just some of the managers who we’ve had to pay out since October 2016.
The last thing we want now is to get another appointment wrong and have to pay out yet another big managerial contract.
The club needs to buck the trend now. A horrible pattern has emerged which is now in full swing. A manager is appointed to save us, manager saves us, manager doesn’t get squad investment, squad fails and manager is sacked early in the following season.
This has happened twice now, and we can’t afford for it to happen again. The financial implications could be huge, not just the money we’d need to pay out, but the effect of Premier League relegation, which – if the trend continues – is a matter of when not if.
You could say that player recruitment in the Summer is at least just as important as the managerial appointment, if not more important. I’m confident that Carvalhal has the experience and qualities to do a decent enough job next season if our recruitment is at a much, much higher standard this Summer than the previous 3 or 4. However, if it’s not, then I can’t help but predict that he’ll end up getting sacked like those before him.
Carlos Carvalhal record after 11 PL games:
P11 W5 D3 L3
Goals For: 14, Against: 13.Francesco Guidolin record after first 11 PL games:
P11 W5 D3 L3
Goals For: 14, Against: 12.Paul Clement:
P11 W4 D1 L6
Goals For: 14, Against: 21.? Vital Swansea #BackToJack (@VitalSwansea) April 2, 2018
I really like the guy, but dont think he is a long term solution. Bring Martinez back after world cup and get back to our core principles that defined the club.
? Alex Morgan (@alexmorganwales) April 4, 2018
Despite revitalising us and giving us a big hope of survival, he’s still not every fan’s ideal manager for next season, and I too have some doubts, but like I said that’s mainly down to our recruitment, or lack of it.
The tweets above make some good points. Some supporters aren’t big fans of our new back 3 system, the flat 5-4-1 is quite conservative and limited to counter-attacking only. Getting back to our possession and passing style of old looks a country mile away now, but it would at least be refreshing for us jacks to see intent in getting some way back to that. Chairman Huw Jenkins claimed that this was the idea behind bringing in Paul Clement, but he proved to be far too cautious, defensive and negative.
We’ve been edging back to that in recent games – it has to be said. We’ve sat back, tried to contain teams before opening up a bit more later in the second half, but we’ve got to start being more positive from the off if we’re to stay up and avoid yet another relegation scrap next season.
