Phil SumblerWell that was quite a busy week at the Swans wasn’t it. It started with the breaking news that the manager was on the verge of a departure and ended with the cancellation of a pre-season friendly due to instances of Covid within the Swansea squad.
In between we have all the manager speculation that looks almost certain to end in the next 48 hours with the appointment of John Eustace as the successor to Steve Cooper with all of this happening with the new season less than two weeks away.
It’s not an ideal position or one that anyone would have wanted and we have had our say on these pages about the fact that the Swans will not have come out of this with much credit the way they have handled the departure, a long drawn out process that seemingly has not yet ended despite the protestations that we knew of all of this two weeks ago.
When Eustace is in his main job is looking at the squad he has available and the obvious areas of strengthening that are needed. He may also have to deal with a few people looking to move on and, as yet, we are yet to receive the transfer bids we are expecting for at least Matt Grimes this summer. We are light in both midfield and attack still at the moment and we can hope that Eustace has already made some of his requirements known to allow people to get on with it.
In the background the club remains ticking over but lacking still behind the scenes and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to not be critical of the way the managerial departure was handled. This may not be a fact but you have to wonder if whether it was the news we broke last Saturday that forced the hands that were played this week. Not in so much as the departure itself but the timing of it. Without that public detail would it have been possible that Cooper would still be here as we dithered behind the scenes to facilitate the departure that he hinted at on the pitch after the final whistle at Wembley (that was no inside news that was just the words of a manager talking about his stay here in the past tense.)
It is not for us to open the inquests on the way that we have handled it or the way that – even with two weeks notice (copyright Swansea City) we haven’t really progressed a managerial appointment and have Alan Tate in charge of first team affairs (administering the Covid tests at the moment maybe!) However, it will be for those in charge at the club to be understanding why this was all allowed to play itself out over the course of the summer or was the belief all along that Cooper would join Crystal Palace (remember the stories of interviews ahead of the play off final?) and it was only their decision not to appoint him that left us in this position and effectively playing catch up.
The appointment of Eustace has to be made sooner rather than later so we can welcome him to Swansea City but more so he can get his head down and complete the hard work that the next two weeks will bring before the opening day at Blackburn.
Swansea City – never a dull moment
