Fans pose the difficult questions but Coleman & Watson provide very little answers

Last night’s fans forum at the Swansea.com Stadium was probably one of the most direct ones that I have attended having been involved in either running or attending them for almost twenty years.

Of course there were the usual questions on team recruitment and how will we beat Cardiff on the weekend but there were also very direct challenges to both Andy Coleman and Paul Watson about their impact and work at the club.    Coleman in particular showed a total skill to deflect any key questions and provide his usual talk around being accountable for his actions.

In fairness to those running the forum there was definitely no scripting of the questions which was clearly shown at the very beginning when the first question directly asked how we could have any faith in Paul Watson given the unmitigated disaster of the summer transfer window.   Watson was not given the immediate chance to defend himself – that was to come later – but the Chairman was clear at the time that he had full faith in Watson to deliver and waffled for a few minutes about how he arrived from Luton with no recruitment team/plan in place at the club.   A fair enough answer in many circumstances but completely washing over the fact that it was his own ownership group that created the problem in the first place.   A point put to Coleman in a later question but one of those points that was completely ignored in the answer given.

Watson was definitely someone in the firing line across the line with questions about his recruitment stance and his role at Luton which was pointed out to him was not on the football side something which he completely disagreed with giving the question poser a line of “you can choose to not believe it” in a very dismissive way.

Coleman on the other hand was questioned about finances (“you have nothing to worry about”) despite losses running into the eight figure bracket (without them putting in money to keep us on a more even keel) and continuing to talk about how he loves the club and it impacts him as much when we are so inept at Bristol City as it does everyone in the room.   It was quickly pointed out to him that it probably didn’t but again the waffle won in Coleman’s response.    This is where forums like this sometimes fall down in that questions are posed, answers are given but there is very little chance for the question poser to come back with a follow up because of the interests in trying to give every voice a chance.

The question about season ticket sales and how they fared compared to last season was brushed over with some waffle about comparing our prices to Huddersfield although I was told after the event that early bird sales for this season were very similar to that of last year.

Luke Williams must have wondered what he had let himself in for as he undertook his first forum but managed to get a word in when the questions returned to football although a desire to understand our preferred formation is never going to bring direct answers from a manager just as he will not give away his team selection for Saturday.   Thankfully that question never materialised!

But it was Coleman and Watson who were definitely the focus for questions and the Chairman in particular must have been wondering about his offer earlier in the day where he said he was “announcing a new initiative where I will be making myself available to supporters for one hour, twice a month, during the season and moving forward.”

One to one sessions may generate more questions than answers and when it was pointed out to the Chairman that he used a lot of words to say not very much he responded by, you guessed it, using a lot of words and not saying very much.  Some things never change.

Even when asked about Watson’s suitability for his job what followed was some random discussion about when Coleman gets up at half three in the morning “P*****d off” he texts Watson and the Sporting Director responds.   Maybe with a little more sleep the recruitment decisions would be better.

I do believe that Coleman wants to make this club run better than it currently is but unfortunately he is showing no signs of actually achieving that.   He has certainly taken on a mantra that communication is key and to a certain extent it is but to be a good communicator you have to be open and transparent and the feeling of the room in general was that Coleman does not meet either of those pieces of criteria on a frequent basis.

There was also the question of Watson and Nathan Jones.    Something that he put down to pure coincidence that he was placed next to the former Luton manager because “we used to work together” but whilst again there was no comeback chance for the person who asked the question it was clear that it was not an answer that was accepted by many people in the room.

The purpose of a fans forum is definitely to give the fans chances to ask questions where they normally would not get the opportunity and this was definitely the case last night.   The downside was that difficult questions were definitely glossed over and despite Coleman again protesting that he is the decision maker until it feels that way the suspicion will remain.   As was evident last night where Coleman was told that Levien pulling his strings could be seen above him!

So what will the Swans Chairman be thinking this morning as he himself reflects back on the forum?   Will he feel that he has underestimated the feeling of the fans at the moment and will he be regretting his decision to open up his office for individual meetings?   Who knows but he will have no doubt at all that there needs to be a PR offensive to get people onside and the only way that can happen is to deliver the things that he claims he wants to promise.   It seems reasonably clear that any calls for the removal of Watson are not going to come to fruition in the immediate future and that the Sporting Director is going to be entrusted with the summer window.    No pressure there at all given the massive job that it will entail.

What is certain though is that whatever they do next they have to get right or the feelings of frustration will continue to boil over.