He was hardly going to get a job in Hammersmith, although being a white man in the Palais wouldn’t have stopped him, the smoke of the Westway left his hopes burning right across London. There’s today’s competition one liner. So, there can’t be another club job that interests ‘current’ Swansea City manager Steve Cooper. So what’s up then with our man who has been with us for over two years ?

There has never been a close season like it, even the apparent men in the know who make it their life’s work to know everything first, Nixon, James, Mitchelmore are stuttering and holding back on their Cooper opinions. Now that’s either because they have been asked to hold fire before the club announce what seems to be increasingly likely - Steve Cooper is leaving story. Or, there’s absolutely nothing to the rumour which has been as well kept a secret as there has been a pandemic over the last eighteen months.

We get numerous and many emails, messages and texts from people with a whole host of latest news, every day. Here’s a few ‘ Cooper has been offered a new contract’ ‘ He is very ill and can’t carry on in football‘ ‘Mike Marsh has hit him and they have fallen out’ ‘Julian Winter hates him because he didn’t get another job, and the club didn’t get their compo’ ‘The Americans have already paid him off, but he keeps turning up for work’ I especially like that one. A few more ‘ He is going to manage England U21’ Yes, that’s plausible. ‘His contract demands are too much for the club to afford’ I can see that a possibility but an extra 150k a year is within the clubs budget. And finally, and I’ve missed out all the legal ones that would cost any website or newspaper a lot of money ‘ He is joining Liverpool as Klop’s number two’ That last one is a number two for sure.

When we write football stories on here and others on their own websites there will always be a queue of people waiting to trip you up on social media, not that they have the slightest intention of doing that in person. For some reason proving people wrong to their five friends on Twitter is a daily task. We’ve rid this site of numerous toxic and disgusting posters but they always surface with their vile opinions and judgements elsewhere. But that doesn’t bother us and we will continue to write and report what we can to keep our thousands of readers every day informed as best we can. We keep other matters in a back pocket for a rainy day.

So, back to Cooper, he isn't popular, well, his brand of football isn’t, but then if he was in other clubs minds this summer then how does he really feel now ? The biggest message he could have is they wouldn’t entertain him as their manager, with or without compensation.That must hurt a lot, Mike Marsh is even more anonymous at the moment, it’s all a bit of a mess. I have to agree the quotes we ran yesterday on our site from Cooper seemed a ‘cover all’ topics direct from the club. But then if he is on his way why even bother doing the news story on the official site ? Just ride out the next few days and get it announced he is going.

Perplexed ? You will be, should he stay or should he go ? The club need to manage this properly and sensibly, just say what’s what, is he going because a lot of folk think he is. Or is he staying because there’s a football club and young players needing coaching and guidance. Rapidly. We have made three very decent signings of late, there seems to be a loan player already in the city awaiting to be announced. Let’s get that done and move forwards, this isn’t something that needs to drag on, yes, it’s just an opinion, but it’s one that matters, it matters to us all.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

Swansea City Polls