Monk was one of Jackett’s early signings at the club and played his part in the club leaving League Two under the now Millwall manager.<\/p>\n
And much like Darren Pratley – another Jackett signing – Monk gives the former manager much credit for starting the Swans rise up the leagues which could continue tonight with a move into second place – their highest for 27 years.<\/p>\n
It was 2004 when Monk arrived at Swansea – “I remember Kenny ringing me that summer and saying that he was interested,” Monk told the Evening Post.<\/p>\n
“There were a couple of other clubs in for me.<\/p>\n
“I remember MK Dons was one, while there was some talk about\u00a0Sheffield\u00a0Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“But I came down here and the rest is history.<\/p>\n
“I came down for a look round on the same day as Sam Ricketts and Forbesy.<\/p>\n
“I think we all took a look at the new stadium, which was a shell at the time, and heard what Kenny had to say and felt the club was definitely going to be going forward rather than backwards.<\/p>\n
“I had a few reservations at the time about dropping down as far as League Two.<\/p>\n
“But with the players Kenny was talking about bringing in and the potential of the club, I just felt that we would definitely get out of the division.<\/p>\n
“We have been progressing as a club ever since, and a lot of that has to be thanks to Kenny.<\/p>\n
“He was the one who started our climb up the leagues.”<\/p>\n
Jackett had replaced Brian Flynn who had kept the Swans in the football league less than 12 months earlier<\/p>\n
“I think Flynny did really well here,” Monk added<\/p>\n
“He brought in more of the flair players, shall we say, but I don’t think that team really had the stability you need.<\/p>\n
“With people like\u00a0Andy Robinson\u00a0and Trunds already here, I think Kenny realised he needed a solid base around them.<\/p>\n
“That makes players like me sound rubbish, but he brought in people like Willy Gueret, Kevin Austin and Sam.<\/p>\n
“When you are in the bottom league, especially, you need that physical side.<\/p>\n
“Okay the football was not the most attractive, but we got the job done.<\/p>\n
“Kenny knows his football and he got it spot on.<\/p>\n
“People talk about long ball, but he never once told the lads at the back to hit it long straightaway.<\/p>\n
“I just think that with players like Rory (Fallon) and Bayo (Akinfenwa) in the team, and people like Leon (Britton) and Robbo running off them, it panned out that way.<\/p>\n
“Roberto came in and changed the style, but Kenny deserves massive credit for giving us that winning mentality, making us go into every game thinking we could win.<\/p>\n
“He started that, it grew under Roberto and now we have it more than ever under the new gaffer.”<\/p>\n
Monk obviously knows all about a Jackett team and that means a tough match tonight with Jackett having lifted Millwall into the Championship last season<\/p>\n
It’s a tough place to be a manager, with their fans and the fact they have to play a certain way.<\/p>\n
“But Kenny has managed to do the job. He got them promoted and this year they look strong and physical and they are going to be organised.<\/p>\n
“It’s a contrast in styles. Hopefully our newer style will beat the old one, but you can never tell.<\/p>\n
“What counts is who performs on the night.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monk was one of Jackett’s early signings at the club and played his part in the club leaving League Two under the now Millwall manager. And much like Darren Pratley – another Jackett signing – Monk gives the former manager much credit for starting the Swans rise up the leagues which could continue tonight with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}