Alan Sheehan, who is featuring in the betting for next Swansea manager has been appointed in temporary charge by Swansea City. Alan came to the club pretty much around the time as Michael Duff and Martin Paterson, Alan remains, the other two have gone.

We reported on the potential for this to happen on Saturday.

That’s here —> ⚽️ Final chance for Duff

Alan Sheehan holds UEFA A and B coaching licenses and it is good to see Andrew Coleman making a decisive move in the interim. As we have said this weeks news will be all about the successor to Duff. We rust there will be clarity if thought as this most certainly could make or break the current investors interest in Swansea City.

Well, it has come to pass and the Swans will now have to rely on Alan Sheehan to lead from the front. His football career took him to thirteen clubs from 20023 to 2022. Sheehan, now thirty seven has held first-team coaching positions at Luton Town and Southampton. He joined the Swans on the recommendation of Paul Watson but was known to Duff having been at Barnsley with him. This is a huge test for Alan, he is young and has never managed or been head coach in his career to date.

There will be some disorientation to deal with come training this morning and for days to come no doubt, many of the players had bought in to Duff’s strategy. It clearly wasn’t working after some pretty poor showings and no wins in five. As we stated last week the Swans are now very much looking down rather than up. It may well take a few more bad hits before some semblance of order returns to Fairwood. Some of the players are young and not used to this type of dismissal off the pitch. Michael Duff found himself under some pressure from what seemed to be the younger element of the supporter base. As equally entitled to an opinion of course, but some of the stuff people put on social media is literally criminal.

It’s clear as well that new short term signing Yannick Bolasie had little clue as to yesterdays news. However there was a meeting after training, maybe he and the players did have an inclination ? He threw himself behind Duff on Sunday after some scathing comments. Yannick actually stated that Duff was the reason why he chose Swansea. He’s an experienced head in the game and the younger players in the squad will need his enthusiasm and positivity to steady the ship. Players on loan will be the first thing to address, their parent clubs have trusted the Swans with their development. We are pretty certain Paul Watson will be having some interesting phone calls today.

The clubs league position and now manager-less is also going to affect any January targets decision making as well. If there’s a mystical and magical way of dealing with these type of situations we can only hope Watson has read the book. Duff was always walking a tightrope, he had the worst record since Bob Bradley, with just a 26% win rate. He becomes the first Swans manager to be sacked since Paul Clement six years ago.

We’ve heard all the usual business speak regards Duff departing the Swans, what we now need are good deeds to follow up the words. Now the leadership at the helm of the club have to step up and follow through with a precise, experienced and creative new head coach, everyone is watching and waiting. We wish them the best of luck.

Photograph with permission Dimitris Legakis

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