Swansea City gave an excellent account of themselves at the Etihad Stadium and were unlucky to leave empty-handed after an injury-time Manchester City goal took all three points. “The quality is there,” their caretaker manager, Alan Curtis, said, and any prospective applicant for the vacant position in south Wales could only have formed the same conclusion.
Gus Poyet is thought to be the favoured candidate to replace Garry Monk, with the club having indicated that they are talking to managers working overseas and would prefer someone with Premier League experience, though Curtis denied any appointment was imminent.
“I don’t mind staying on for a few more games if necessary, but we need a permanent manager,” Monk’s former assistant said. “If it takes a little longer to find him that is what we will have to do. We have always brought in a manager to suit our style rather than changing everything and that is what we will be looking to do again. That may take a bit longer. Whoever it is, the most important thing is to get the right man and make the right appointment for this club.”
Apart from Poyet, currently working with AEK Athens, Swansea are understood to have sounded out Dennis Bergkamp, though the Ajax assistant is apparently happy being No2 and has no plans to go into management at this stage.
Ryan Giggs has also been mentioned but has no managerial experience and would surely be too great a risk for a club in Swansea’s position. The same would apply to Mark Warburton, who did well enough at Brentford to land a job at Rangers but is short of Premier League experience.
Swansea have dropped to 16th in the table after winning one of their last 12 games, though they are far from a basket case. They need a reliable finisher, Wilfried Bony never having been satisfactorily replaced, but otherwise they are still the side that won so many plaudits last season and against City they showed it.
While Monk may have been too close to the problem to turn the present situation around, having been connected to the club for more than 10 years, a new manager ought to relish the chance to work with players of the calibre of Gylfi Sigurdsson, André Ayew and Ashley Williams.
“This is still Garry’s team and it has been a funny old week,” Curtis said. “We have lost managers in the past but this felt much more personal. Michael Laudrup and Brendan Rodgers both sent messages of support, everyone was a bit sad but determined to see the club on the up again. So many people have written us off but if we can keep up the standard of performance we showed against Manchester City we’ll be fine.”
