Swans head coach, Alan Sheehan has come under a fair bit of criticism over the first thirteen games of the season, now more than twenty five percent of the season has flashed by. The odd thing is people were clamouring for his sacking right at the start of the season, and that has risen.

Even after reflection that wasn’t a bad result at Charlton Athletic on Saturday, the performance some fans found frustrating, stating they just couldn’t watch it. The words ‘tedious and slow’ were muttered, then of course others found it acceptable and saw positivity with 2,500 Jacks most certainly enjoying their day out. When you look at the Championship table below the Swans are five points from fifth place. They are eight from the last relegation spot.

In certain away games - and at home supporters of the opposition have lauded the Swans style of play. After some fixtures comments along the lines of ‘Swansea were much the better team’ as we again saw after Saturday post match. They are in the majority as well. Saturday is a fine example.

We all know the issue with Sheehan’s Swans. It’s consistency and ability to keep a cool head in front of goal. When in positions to create or supply that final ball the Swans are pretty shocking. That’s the crazy thing we refer to, the Swans are often called more than a decent team this season. Even when the ‘in thing’ was to give goals away at the end of games (or halves) That seems to have sorted itself out for now, but scoring remains the issue. Without Zân Vipotnik (below with Malick Yalcouyé at Charlton) on duty this problem will get worse before it gets better if Adam Idah doesn’t respond positively this week. The Swans do play a very good style of football at times, it’s encouraging but there is little resemblance to the end of last season. The reason ? It could be some of the sides the Swans played were getting ready for the beach or the momentum the Swans had at that time was hard to deal with. That got Sheehan the Swansea job, but that form hasn’t been repeated.

Does this mean that Sheehan is nearly there, that his team is now after a quarter of the season ready to impress the Jack Army ? It’s a big test away on Wednesday v Preston (7:45pm) and its a home game against Ipswich on Saturday (3pm) Or are we set to see the pattern so far, a team that won’t go down, but because of their lack of winning ability they will end up short of the play offs, possibly top ten ? That presents a problem internally with clubs showing interest in at least three Swansea players already - and there is no doubt there will be tempting offers come next summer.

Swans fans were delighted to see so many good players come in this summer so much so the expectation was pretty big. That expectation was quickly filtered away to what we are seeing at this point of the season. You can understand the disappointment after that pre season build up but you really have to reflect on the clubs business. Twenty nine ins and outs is the total. That’s a huge turnaround of personnel not withstanding the coaching side has had an addition in assistant manger Darren O’Dea. New faces, new methodology and definitely new expectations. Certain fans will now tell you that Christmas is a better benchmark to judge from. However, there is still a feeling now that it’s time for Sheehan to go.

For us, it’s too early, if Luke Williams gets to where he did before his sacking, Alan Sheehan must have more time. We can’t leave this conundrum without the obvious issue of money. We have asked the question and to pay up the contracts of Sheehan and O’Dea ? Two and a half years to compensate isn’t a small figure. We are told if the duo were moved on today the Swans would be paying up to £1.4 million, albeit over a period of time. Michael Duff’s payment package finished a year after his sacking, any news on Luke Williams, now Peterborough manager isn’t available to us. Let’s not forget about profit and sustainability because it all adds up and sacking managers every season isn’t financially viable.

That should be foremost in people’s minds.

Photographs Open Source : Vipotnik photograph, uncredited

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