The first piece of pleasing news this morning is that Chris Davies has been told by his Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou that it’s down to him if he wants to leave the club. We have learned the Swans aren’t the only club interested in him, so it could be a case of stay home where it’s warm or go and test yourself elsewhere.

Postecoglou said yesterday afternoon, “He’s an outstanding individual; he’s done some great work with us and great work in the past. It’s not surprising to me that Swansea or other clubs would look at him. It’s what you want to be honest. You want good people and when you’ve got good people, they’re going to attract attention”

That’s a change from Wednesday when Spurs rejected an initial Swansea approach. It’s good management from Postecoglou who is quite rightly ensuring his staff are given the opportunity to set their own career path. Nobody wants an unhappy assistant being told he can’t do something when he would potentially at least like to consider his options.

Postecoglou confirmed this yesterday, “From my perspective, whatever that transpires to, it’s very much in Chris’ hands. It’s his decision in terms of what he wants to do moving forward and obviously the club will deal with it from there.” There will be a large compensation fee, Chairman Daniel Levy, who has been at the club for twenty two years is well known for tight contracts and considerable release clauses for his staff and players. And for anyone who doesn’t know he can turn people inside out with his negotiating skills. Huw Jenkins, when Chairmen at the Swans had a few long winded discussions over a number of players, and we can tell you he found it pretty exhausting.

For the current Swans Chairman to put himself and his assistant Ken Gude in to Levy’s sights would be an exhilarating fly on the wall situation. Two men who have around five months experience in the bag regards running a British football club against a Spurs Chairman of considerable longevity in the English game. Levy, who loves to play transfer hardball which saw him take on Tottenham centre-forward Harry Kane, the club’s highest ever goalscorer, in the summer of 2021. Despite Kane’s belief that the pair had a “agreement” that he could leave when he wanted. Levy blocked the England captain’s attempts to depart for Manchester City, rejecting a £127m offer from the Premier League champions.

Real Madrid sports journalists were amazed when Levy took player talks right to the transfer-window wire in a bid to extract the highest possible fee from interested parties. He finally got Madrid to cough up £30m for Modric - and a then-world-record €102.5m for Bale. In a 2012 report of the Spurs chairman, AS’s Marco Ruiz described him as a “negotiator with an iron fist”

Best of luck Andy.

Postecoglou : “I have said in the past, it is part of my role to develop staff and I am really proud of the fact a lot of the guys I’ve worked with, the reason they are not with me as assistants is because they are senior managers in their own right. If you are looking for things that will be disruptive, you can use that as a clutch or an excuse for anything. We lost Harry Kane the day before the season started so there is a disruption, we lost half the squad after one game so there is a disruption. There will always be this. You can’t work in a vacuum where everything is perfect and, for me, I have been relaxed in these kind of situations because I have always believed the environment will cover whatever challenges we have if we get it right.”

That looks more promising than it did on Wednesday for sure.

The issue has to be that Chris Davies like Eric Ramsey and Brian Murphy are all untried at manager level. They have learned their craft playing understudy. Of course they will have far more overall experience than some of the manager names in the current betting. They coach and form strategy’s at top Premier League clubs. And are considerably successful at it. However, the underlying question is still there, and this makes any untested management appointment a risk.

We must add though that Davies has five hundred plus games as an assistant manager at Swansea, Liverpool, Reading, Celtic and Leicester City. He has only experienced sixteen games as assistant at Spurs so he has hardly bedded in, but we ask the question again, Swansea or Tottenham ? Plus there’s his contract to consider, a tough Levy negotiation to navigate and even then it could all collapse.

IF Elfsborg head coach, Jimmy Thelin (above) has also been linked over the past twenty four hours. He has been a complete success if challenging for the Allsvenskan title is considered as progress. Last season Elfsborg were pipped to the title by Malmo on goal difference, and their last game was against Malmo which they won 1-0. The amount of clubs being linked to Thelin is a very long list with various reporters across Europe adding his name to some seriously big jobs. He’s a young coach who never really has a successful football career, but he’s made up for it in management at Elfsborg. This seems like a long shot, but new names will appear every other day.

The Swans take on Rotherham United later in Yorkshire (KO 3pm ) More on this game at around midday.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

Swansea City Polls