Tiki-taka has made way for the truly terrible at Swansea City. Once held up as a paragon for long-term planning and of how to run a football club on a relatively low budget, now they are an under-funded shambles with one of the worst squads in Premier League history.
They fired Paul Clement for having the audacity to preside over an asset-stripping so prodigious that he was left with a strikeforce of a lumbering Wilfried Bony, an inexperienced Tammy Abraham and Oliver McBurnie, which Balls reader Dave Griffiths points out, may be the most GAA-looking player ever to stalk the Premier League.
@ballsdotie Swansea with the most @officialgaa looking player ever to grace the @premierleague #McBurnie pic.twitter.com/SpD4jIeZ3O
— Dave Griffiths (@IrishnKentucky) December 26, 2017
(Caretaker manager Leon) Britton clearly wanted to Leave (the temporary role) meaning that Swansea were on the hunt for a new manager. Tony Pulis was mentioned with the role, but he instead took up a job with Middlesbrough following their sacking of Garry Monk. Immediately, Monk was installed as favourite to return to his former job, but today the club have gone in a different - and deeply puzzling - direction.
Monk was fired after his 'Boro side came from behind to beat Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, after which the Wednesday manager Carlos Carvalhal was also fired.
Remarkably, Carvalhal has been now been given the Swansea job. Officially unveiled today, Carvalhal watched the 5-0 battering at Anfield from the Director's Box, presumably through the gaps between his fingers.
Swansea had targeted a few high-profile Dutchmen according to the Mirror, namely Louis Van Gaal, Frank De Boer, and Ronald Koeman - but all attempts to hand them a chalice overflowing with poison were rebuffed.
Carvalhal spent two-and-a-half years at Wednesday, his first job in England having coached 15 previous clubs, the highest-profile being Besiktas and Sporting.
What with Carvalhal being a relatively unheralded Portuguese coach, we turn now to Paul Merson.
[Mirror]
