After just 1 win in the last 11 games, Swansea have decided to pull the plug on Garry Monk’s reign at the club. Despite being just 36years of age, Monk had become somewhat of a distinguished figure at the club. And rightfully so.
He played for The Swans for about a decade making over 200 appearances before becoming a player manager following the sacking of cup winning manager Michael Laudrup.
In 2014-15 season Garry Monk did brilliantly well, exceeding all expectations and finishing 8th in the league with a record points tally for the club also doing the double over both Manchester United and Arsenal in the process. Not a lot of managers can boast about having done that. He had steadied the ship and taken the club in the right direction making some vital changes while still being true to the club’s ethos and brand of football.
This season has been less of a fairytale. Swansea have struggled in front of goal having scored only 14 goals. (Only Villa have scored fewer) They find themselves only a point above the danger zone, which simply isn’t good enough for Swansea anymore.
But is the decision to sack him correct? I don’t think so. He has done a brilliant job as a manager and has proved that despite his lack of experience, he can do a job at the top level. One doesn’t become a bad manager all of a sudden. What I would love to see from clubs is to stick with their manager during turbulent times. He had done enough at the club to warrant the faith of his superiors.
This is the 1st real bad spell they’ve faced under him and it ended with him getting the sack. This is a disturbing trend in modern football. A slight blip in form and all of a sudden the manager comes under pressure. Relegation is too big a financial blow for football clubs these days, estimated at around £60m in ticket revenues, TV rights and Premier League prize money.
That is a LOT of money. Which is why clubs panic.
Which is not a good thing for the overall stability of the club. When you have a manager that is obviously good enough, who plays the way you want to play, does things your way, is good with the players then you should ideally give him a lot longer than 15games to turn around a tough season.
If you remove the tenure of the freakishly (by modern standards) long serving manager of Arsenal, the average manager in the Premier League stays in his job for just 1.3years. With Sir Alex now gone, Wenger’s tenure is longer than the tenure of all other managers in the division combined! That is absolutely incredible.
Statistics like that can never be good for football. But it is hard to argue against the trend. Swansea will now appoint an equally good manager (Brendan Rodgers?) who will steer them to safety (which I’m convinced Monk would’ve done as well) and their decision to get rid of the Englishman will have been justified.
I don’t agree with it, but that’s what it’s like to be a manager these days
