Planet Swans ArchivesIt was less than 24 hours after Laudrup had delivered for us the first piece of major silverware in the club’s history on a Wembley stage that saw his team rip Bradford to sheds and win the League Cup.
But Laudrup was quick to confirm he wanted to stay and the words he told Sky Sports summed it up nicely “I can only sustain what I’ve said before – my intention is to stay here, I have one more year on my contract. And that’s it.”
And whilst we have been bitten before it is easy to believe him when he says that as he will take the club into their first European campaign for over 20 years when they head into Europa League action in August.
When Laudrup arrived in Swansea last summer it was pointed out by the fans that he had a pedigree of taking sides and getting them to punch above what appeared – on paper at least – their weight. He quickly set out his targets which was Premier League safety and he had his eye on one of the cups and always maintained that they maybe had more chance in the League Cup then the FA Cup.
Premier League safety has never really been in any doubt from the moment we brushed QPR aside on the opening day of the season and slowly but surely we proceeded through the early rounds of the Capital One Cup.
It may have been a scrape past Barnsley and Crawley but by the time we rocked up at Anfield in Round Four you started to think maybe our name was on the cup. That night we came of age again as we outplayed the current holders of the cup on their own ground before overcoming Middlesborough in our first appearance in the quarter final of this competiton.
We weren’t though going to do it the easy way with a two legged semi final against European Champions Chelsea but goals from Michu and the soon to depart Danny Graham gave the Swans the chance of a major final as they returned to the Liberty with a two goal advantage.
The rest – as we know – is history as we played out a goalless draw in a match remembered for Eden Hazard and a ballboy rather than for a composed, perfect performance from the Swans.
Michael was delivering what he wanted as he led his side out at Wembley before 90 minutes of the most stylish, skillful and pleasing on the eye football you could ever wish to see in a Cup final brought us the joyous scenes that we saw at the final whistle.
And so we look to the relationship between the manager and his Chairman and once again we consider ourselves lucky to have someone like Huw Jenkins in charge who is prepared to take what you could consider as a gamble with a managerial appointment. We say a gamble because he didn’t come with a large pedigree as a manager but he had a passion and desire which is what Huw is looking for in a manager and that convinced the Chairman last summer to give the man a chance in the hotseat and boy what a decision that was.
And as other clubs look at Laurdrup and wonder ‘what if’ we sit here quite smugly that we were forward thinking enough to make the decision. And maybe all those clubs that just look at performance elsewhere before making a decision maybe the call that you should make is to the Liberty and ask for the Chairman’s secret rather than riding his coat tails on the back of his last decision.
We have the perfect pairing here at Swansea and long may it continue
