Williams may have gone but the real problems at Swansea City still remain

The Swans decision to part company with Luke Williams yesterday was largely inevitable after a run of form that saw the side slide from being talked about as outsiders for the playoffs to looking nervously over their shoulder after a run of just one game in all fixtures this year.

The news, when it broke yesterday afternoon, was of no real surprise given that run of form although it did follow a weekend where the general speculation was one that the Swans could not afford to sack Williams or that the appointment of his friend, Richard Montague, would buy him a stay of execution,

Clearly though that speculation was wide of the mark as was proved when the announcement came yesterday afternoon that, after just thirteen months at the club, Williams was being relieved of his duties.

The exact details of the financial cost of this particular appointment will probably never be known to anyone who was not privy to the discussions but for now the search for his replacement is underway,

Now while the departure of the manager is as a direct result of both results on the pitch and his own actions around the turn of the year the change of the man at the helm should not deflect the part that our problems have nowhere near disappeared.

The current state of Swansea City can be laid firmly at the feet of several years of total mis-management of the club, a mis-management that continues even this morning as the replacement search really gets underway in earnest.

We have no coherent plan to underpin the future of the club and we stumble from one disaster to another.   When we failed in a transfer window under Russell Martin, Andy Coleman was keen to point out that we were putting a plan into place to ensure those mistakes were not repeated.   We then repeated them that summer, the following January and the two windows since.   Simply put we have no real plan to get people into the club that can progress us as a squad but seem to operate on a tactic where we release – often in the closing stages of a window – some names that are largely unrealistic and then state how difficult it is to do business.   These names are not “missed out on” by mistake, they were never really realistic options for us but it deflects some way towards stopping people wondering about our own incompetence.

In managerial appointments since Coleman took the wheel we have seen the terrible appointments of both Michael Duff and Luke Williams but you wouldn’t survive on a poker table if the dealer gave you a hand that contained two jokers, Mrs Bunn the baker and the two of shovels.   Because again of our lack of coherent plan we now a squad that is not fit for purpose and over the course of the last five years or so we have seen every level of decent player into this team sold at what feels like the first opportunity.

This isn’t all down to Coleman.  The mis-management was evidenced before his time here and it doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down.   You only have to wonder what Ken Gude does here and you can see where it is going on and whilst the use of data is understandable in all businesses it becomes pretty evident that we have little understanding as to what that data actually means or how we translate it into some level of progression for the club.

At the back end of last year the ownership of the club changed hands and their oversight of the January window was pretty dreadful so now we wait to see what their oversight of the managerial search looks like.  Expect the soundbites of “the Swansea Way” but I am not sure that anyone involved actually has a clear vision of what this is, how they deliver it or even what qualities are needed to provide that vision.

On recruitment we had Paul Watson but his alleged indiscretions saw him depart last year and then we successfully managed to recruit his replacement right after the closure of the transfer window.  That feels like it was structured and well thought through to leave someone with zero real experience in football in charge of what was a very key window for us.

It is difficult to see what will change as a result of yesterday’s sacking.   We will appoint a new manager although smart money is probably on Sheehan until the end of the season for no other reason other than it buys Coleman time, something he seems to want loads of even when there are tight deadlines to work with,

However for that next manager to succeed we need things to change behind him.  We need sight of that coherent plan, we need those actions Andy likes to tell us about to speak louder than words and we need to see a massive step change in this club and the way it operates.

The sacking of Luke Williams may be enough to halt our decline this season but the warning signs are evident enough for the seasons to come and unless things change pretty dramatically I fear that we are heading back to the lower two divisions as we certainly don’t operate ourselves like a Championship club nor do we highlight the desire to remain one.

Williams may have gone yesterday but the real problems remain in charge of the club and until they change their ways then everything will have the feel of being the same.