The Foxes Trust always aims to get the views on any new arrivals at our club from the Trust of the side they have previously served. In this article, Phil Sumbler, Chairman of the Swansea City Supporters Trust, gives his views on Paulo Sousa’s time at their club.
I am sure that Leicester fans everywhere have sought and read the views of fans of both Swansea and QPR since Paulo decided to switch South Wales for the East Midlands last weekend. A twice Champions League winner managing a third Championship club in three seasons – a sign of a time to worry or slowly moving his way up the ladder to get to the top – somewhere where he spent a large part of his playing career.
Paulo came to Swansea with an impossible task, to take over from Roberto Martinez. Roberto had taken the Swans from a League One side to within touching distance of the Premier League. No mean feat in itself but one that was achieved with a style of football not often seen at our level and one that attracted praise from all quarters. “Can we have them in the Premier League” said Alan Green one Saturday after Swansea had torn Fulham apart in the FA Cup.
But all dreams turn sour and Roberto jumped ship for Wigan – Wigan of all places! – and he didn’t go alone, he ripped his backroom staff from the club – assistant, scout, goalkeeping coach, fitness coach and physio. And then for good measure he grabbed our leading goalscorer at the same time. We were a club in disarray.
In came Paulo. Whatever he said at his interview had impressed the board and this was the step upwards surely. A great bloke was Roberto, a good manager for us was Roberto but – with respect to him – his playing career was little more than ordinary. Certainly in comparison to the legend that was Paulo Sousa….
By this point South Wales – or at least South West Wales – hated Roberto and Paulo was granted time to rebuild. Ironically his first league game was at the Walkers Stadium – a 2-1 defeat for the Swans was the start of a pretty unspectacular start to the season. But the time he was granted saw the poor start masked by a pretty horrendous injury list and the common line “look at what he inherited”
Paulo had promised to play football the “Swansea way” which meant a continuation of what Roberto had started and that excited people. Or at least the thought of it did. He improved several players who had looked ineffective under Roberto but seemed to step up a level. And results started to turn and the Swans climbed the league table.
But even in those early days alarm bells were ringing. Goals were at a premium and the signings of Craig Beattie and Lee Trundle did little to alleviate those concerns. Beattie scored a few – interestingly away from home – and Trundle scored a few but goals weren’t flowing and certainly we were not creating the volume of chances that we did twelve months previous.
The season before you really believed it was just a matter of time before someone was buried under an avalanche of Swansea goals – this season you just believed we would win a few games, some of them may even be by two goals.
What was happening though was we were tighter at the back. Difficult to break down and even in November you felt the clean sheet record was to be broken. Nothing wrong with not conceding but there are only so many 0-0 draws you can stomach. You watched a game and if there was a goal you felt you may as well go home as there was a better than average chance of that being the only goal of the game.
But we were still playing the nice passing game that had drawn the plaudits the season before. Weren’t we? To be honest there were games where we had 60%+ possession but when you look back most of that was in our own half and large proportions of it across the back four – into midfield and backwards again. The cutting edge had gone. Paulo works with the “if the opposition don’t have the ball they can’t score” mentality which is true but pleasing on the eye it certainly isn’t.
But the wins kept coming and with the wins the league position got better. And that masked what was unfolding in front of our eyes. The Swans were in with a real shout of Premier League football but on this occasion it was at the expense of the entertainment. The fun had gone.
As one person said last weekend “better bring a good book” and it was true. I saw 33 of the 46 games last season, I would say I enjoyed less than 10% of them and remember them with any fondness – win or lose. Watford away summed it up for me, we started well, the Swans scored early – chances aplenty both ends and the game ended 1-0. We scored and sat back.
And then we have the team selections. Paulo was either unable to know what it was or unwilling to admit who it was on his best XI. We changed not just 1 or 2 a week it seemed numerous. And very few of them made sense. Players who played well one game were on the bench – or worse the next game. Crystal Palace away summed it up for me. But we won the games and it became hard to argue. We either had a tactical genius who was able to pick the right team at the right time or we had the luckiest man on earth. Even now I have no idea which was nearer the mark.
From March we fell away. We looked inept and clueless and Paulo seemed unable to change that. A like for like sub when you chase again seems just wrong. Chopping and changing the team finally was proved to be wrong and with some inevitably we missed out. Ironically because we couldn’t score on the last day of the season. Irony? Of the worst kind.
We were one goal away from the play offs and with our defensive record we would have had a decent chance of winning them. But was it fun to watch? Was it a memorable season? Did it want to make you come back for more? No. On all three accounts.
I don’t want to come across as bitter on this one because genuinely I am not. Paulo wanted to move on and we let him. But please don’t expect free flowing football, contacts from abroad bringing in players who will only work for Paulo and certainly don’t expect a bucket load of goals as you march towards the Premier League. You will be well organised, you won’t concede many and you will probably win more than you lose. What you won’t win though is new friends and admirers.
Be ready for it and if you need any – I’m sure some of us have books that you can borrow.
The views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation.