Phil Sumbler
The tenure and longevity of Luke Williams as Swansea City manager is under more question now than it has ever been after his side put in another pathetic ninety minutes of football, this time in a crushing 3-0 defeat at the hands of local rivals Cardiff City yesterday lunchtime.
In a third successive away performance that highlighted every deficiency not just in the depth of our squad but also the powers of motivation coming from the sidelines as we face the harsh reality that those three games have seen us muster zero goals, concede ten and muster a grand total of just six shots on target. This is a football team that has lost its way being led by a coach who had his head turned by some press speculation and in a very short period of time has lost a vast majority of a club’s fanbase.
It takes something quite spectacular for that to happen in just a three week period since we defeated Luton at the Swansea.com Stadium and has largely been a downfall orchestrated by Luke who spent a large amount of time around the turn of the year watching his representatives pushing for that West Brom move and has seen his side deteriorate with just a Joe Allen injury time equaliser at West Brom being the return from the four games since that feeling of togetherness that was experienced at the Luton game.
The reactions of the fans after the dreadful display at the Cardiff City Stadium tells you all you need to know with a poll we placed on ‘X’ yesterday evening highlighting a position where 3 out of every 4 fans casting a vote deciding that the time for Williams was up – a pretty big cross section too with over 500 votes cast in the first few hours of it being posted.
Luke Williams is a man who could be the mastermind of his own downfall. His inability to pour scorn on the rumours that linked him with a West Brom job – now filled by Tony Mowbray – did him no favours and each time he was asked about the links he seemed to double down with some nonsense which even went as far as his agent being in bed ill which he felt was enough to dismiss the stories. That is either naivety or arrogance but either way it did not land well with the Swans fans and whilst some good results would have reduced that pressure, Luke has had to watch his side going in the opposite direction. And that maybe a position from which he does not recover.
It was an angry looking Williams that faced the press after the Swans biggest defeat in the derby for over sixty years as he talked about “the performances fell off the edge of a cliff and that is really upsetting and worrying. The stark change in our performances from half hour in as we lost the grip of the game and so many players suffered so badly and got worse and worse as the game went on.” Luke Williams laying the blame solely at the feet of his players and failing to take any of the blame himself, a trait seen regularly in a football manager who seemingly now believes his own hype, has the West Brom ‘interest’ given him a belief in his ability that is not transferred to the performances from his team.
Luke can talk all he wants about aggression and confidence but recent displays have not indicated anything along those lines and to experience that once is poor, twice is careless but three times – and certainly in the light of the defeat yesterday – is totally unacceptable and brings questions as to whether Luke has lost the dressing room. There are more than enough stories/rumours floating around about the players hatred of repetitive training sessions but the performances on the pitch are more than suggesting that the relationship between the two key aspects of a football team are not necessarily ones that can be repaired.
“This was a dreadful day,” continued Williams in a statement that will probably be one of the few recent statements that Swans fans can line up behind. Dreadful probably only goes a small way to describe the meek manner in which we were brushed aside by Cardiff in a performance where the fight and desire in the performance was not there. Tempers did spill over towards the end of the game with a flurry of yellow cards and the dismissal of Riza from the technical area but fight – as Luke acknowledged – was something sadly lacking in the performance throughout the game. “It was pathetic,” continued the Swans boss. “If we think in any way that is going to take attention away from the shoddy performance then we are very much mistaken. The time for fighting was on the pitch, fighting for the ball and for the fans not scrapping on the pitch and swearing and pushing, that was pathetic.”
Tough comments from the Swans boss and comments that add a little more fuel to the belief that the gulf between manager and players is widening and certainly that belief won’t be reduced by the clear stance that his players let him down from the mouth of Williams.
Reflecting back on those turbulent few weeks since the Luton games, Luke admitted it was difficult “We salvaged a draw against a very good West Brom side where neither side played great. A big defeat against a Premier League team but this one is different, it is such a huge game for everybody and we didn’t perform in the correct way.”
The questions then quickly turned to the links between Williams and West Brom and it was noticeable that the manager moved uncomfortably in his seat as he was questioned if he felt it was anything more than coincidental “Nobody has mentioned that to me, I don’t know. I am more than happy to take the blame if that was it but it looked to me as if certain players were unable to perform in this pressure. I hope it was nothing to do with speculation about me.”
Yet again, the boss appeared ready to throw members of his playing staff under the bus and not accept any of the liability for the performance and even more so when it was pointed out that many of the squad had played in this fixture beforehand “I don’t think it was every player that suffered. Some of them equipped themselves very well, others didn’t. When the team has players on the pitch that are not in a good place and struggling to cope then it is difficult for everybody. If we don’t improve then we have to replace players who cannot get to that level.”
As the interview went on it felt like the comments of Williams were also signifying frustrations between the manager and the board. It doesn’t seem to be a total secret that Andy Coleman was frustrated with the way Williams handled the West Brom situation and as the Swans boss was asked about reinforcements then he confirmed that there were no imminent deals to be done in SA1 “We are not on the brink of bringing in somebody at the moment. There is no point in just bringing in another body we need someone to make us better. We are not blessed with huge alternatives so I better get to work and get the maximum I can out of the squad.”
The Swans hierarchy has been accused in more than one recent window of bringing in the wrong players and when you couple those accusations with Williams comments of players not being up to the job you cannot help but wonder if the relationship has broken down to a level where change becomes inevitable. Everything you see at the moment suggests that this could very much be the closing stages of Luke Williams tenure at Swansea City and with games against Sheffield United and Norwich coming in the next seven days there is nothing ahead of the boss that makes his task look any easier.
With new investors behind the scenes at the club they will not want to oversee a run of form that drags the Swans further down the table and they will certainly be as concerned as anyone about the nature of recent defeats. People have talked about “can we afford to sack Williams” but the question could quickly turn to “can we afford not to” As referenced above it does feel that all the ‘evidence’ points to things not being well behind the scenes and that normally only ever leads to one thing and that is the change of the manager. And if that does happen then, on this occasion, Luke really only will have himself to blame.
