Vital Swansea Blogs

TAWE Blog #4 – Relegation & Revelations from Michael Laudrup’s Agent – ‘Fans Deserve The Truth’

|
Image for TAWE Blog #4 – Relegation & Revelations from Michael Laudrup’s Agent – ‘Fans Deserve The Truth’

The fourth T.A.W.E Blog where we catch up with all the main events of the week, and this week, we really don’t know where to start…

Relegation and the defeat against Southampton

Firstly, let’s get relegation done and out of the way, not to mention that ‘cup final’ game at the Liberty Stadium on Tuesday night that felt like anything but a cup final.

Huddersfield got a well-earned 1-1 draw and point at Chelsea on Wednesday night – confirming their Premier League status for another season and practically relegating us. Shortly afterwards, we penned a few more thoughts here

‘Carvalhal bottled it’

We were warned about this by Sheffield Wednesday fans when he first arrived at the end of 2017. He can initially inspire a run of form they said, but he soon bottles it in big games, playing more and more negative football.

Carlos Carvalhal simply threw it away. Whilst relegation isn’t his fault, he could have prevented it, and delayed it for at least for another year! Since the West Ham game, 9 games ago in all competitions, we’ve scored only twice, and not winning a single game. That form saw us throw away a 4-point gap from the drop zone and got us relegated with a game to spare.

What was just as frustrating as him bottling it with negative tactics for too long, was his comments and denial after the defeat. You can check that out, including the average positions map of the game in our article here

Carvalhal to stay or not? Twitter Poll

Carvalhal won’t be staying on beyond this season, that seems nailed on, but we still wanted to know what the fans thought on the head coach’s future. It’s no surprise that they were heavily in favour of the club’s decision to not offer him a new deal. The poll received three times as many votes compared to our previous twitter polls, with 777 votes:

Alan Curtis’ BBC interview – relegation a ‘numb feeling’

Alan Curtis’ interview with the BBC following our relegation is a must watch. The club legend talks about the factors that led to our downfall, citing poor player recruitment and having to appoint managers simply to ‘get results’ rather than fitting in with our ‘system and way of playing’.

Curtis also calls for an end-of-season review to look back at the mistakes we’ve made over the ‘last couple of years’ and ‘hopefully try to remedy them’.

Rangel to leave the club at the end of the season

The Swans also confirmed on Thursday via the official site that Angel Rangel will be leaving the club after a decision was made to not renew his contract at the end of the season.

Laudrup’s agent Tutumlu’s revelations on Twitter

Here it is, the main event. Following our relegation this week, former manager Michael Laudrup’s agent Bayram Tutumlu has been relentless on Twitter, posting a number of tweets about what’s gone wrong at the club, not to mention player in-fighting and identifying Martin Morgan as public enemy number 1.

It’s difficult to know where to start with all of this because so much has been said, but firstly, let’s just say that this is Michael Laudrup’s agent and it’s only one side to the story. After all, he’s thinking about his own and his client’s best interests. But whatever you think of all of this, it’s been entertaining reading for the last day or two nevertheless.

Some of the main points he’s made on Twitter:

  • “Swansea City was selling [shares] because of MM” (Martin Morgan)
  • He and Michael Laudrup are still friends with chairman Huw Jenkins and still in contact
  • He had a “very strong fight” with Jenkins that “almost arrived at hand” but they both made up
  • He spoke to Jenkins via telephone in the last month and told Jenkins to get rid of Carvalhal because he was “taking us to the Championship” and re-install Alan Curtis as caretaker coach
  • He and Laudrup still “love Swansea City very much”
  • Jenkins approached him before appointing Carvalhal about bringing Michael Laudrup back to the club
  • Has told Swansea fans that they need to know the truth and that he wants to tell all in a “special TV show”
  • Huw Jenkins isn’t to blame, but Martin Morgan “who’s not a good person” (and some of the “veteran players” are because they “deceived Huw Jenkins”
  • Those veteran players being (in his order): Garry Monk, Alan Tate, Leon Britton, Ashley Williams.
  • Those veteran players weren’t Premier League quality, but they simply “wanted to play” and made sure of it
  • Garry Monk led a hatchet job to get rid of Laudrup as Swansea manager, the “veterans didn’t let Laudrup finish his work”
  • He never liked Leon Britton, who “always spoke with Martin Morgan”
  • Chico Flores wanted to “break Garry Monk’s face” – Chico didn’t like “lies and traitors”

So make of that what you will. But we have to mention that a lot of what was said tallies up with the strong rumours that were circulating during Garry Monk’s time as manager.

In particular, the way Monk undermined Laudrup, together with Ashley Williams to get rid of Laudrup to help him get the job. Those two players, in particular, had a big influence at the club at that time, Monk also did something similar with former manager Paulo Sousa – just read his book.

Martin Morgan is also an interesting point. I can’t go into detail on that but rumours were rife a few years ago about the former main stakeholder and simply how “shares needed to be sold”.

It’s also interesting how he mentions Chico Flores wanting to “break Garry Monk’s face”, the best tweet of the lot that. It was said that the former defender held up a brick at training, something I initially thought was nonsense until being told it again by someone who apparently saw it happen. There was in-fighting, mainly between some of the Spanish players who sided with Laudrup, and some of the more senior players or “veterans” as Tutumlu called them, who didn’t.

Garry Monk’s apparent under-mining of Michael Laudrup would later backfire on him when he was the manager, as events unfolded, he suffered the same fate – ironically. The form and performance levels of his side dropped almost overnight, and he was later sacked.

I’m still very sceptical on his comments and like of Huw Jenkins though. They had a big falling out, which Tutumlu admitted, but he also revealed how they made up and are now good friends and speak often. However, he did speak to a Daily Mail journalist who then reported that the Swans approached Laudrup after sacking Paul Clement.

Still, I can’t begin to believe that there’s any chance whatsoever that the pair of them could make a return to the club, absolutely no chance.

Well, whatever you make of it, and whatever comes of it, it’s at least been entertaining!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our latest weekly blog. What did you make of Tutumlu’s tweets? Interesting or not worth the time of day? Let us know in the comments or in the forum here

Share this article

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *