Andrew Coleman, the relatively new club Chairman at the Swans is introducing the type of clever wording in to his interviews that gives an impression but not the answer.
Of course you would respect anyone who has flown his family to Swansea for a move that will be nothing like they’ve seen before, in a country they know little about. However, as we have seen of late the gamble for him and Ken Gude ( right hand man ) isn’t really that big as their remuneration alone is huge money. The problem we see ahead, and there is certainly some further upheaval coming ‘behind the scenes’ which Michael Duff nudged the media towards yesterday. Failing to get a grip with Duff twice mentioning issues ‘behinds the scenes’ or similar. Either the assembled journalists were told not to pick up on this or they haven’t got the skills to properly manage a conversation - is another big question that needs answering.
Our thoughts on the current situation on Swansea are briefly mentioned here from yesterday.
Our take on the current situation we reported earlier in the week, and we stand by every word.
That’s below.
We had information last week of further changes in certain positions, but we didn’t put it in to print because as always we intend to firm the information up first. However, it’s common knowledge now that another recruitment specialist in Martin Hodge is in talks regards a position at the top of the Swansea City tree. Those branches must be quite bendy now.
However, in amongst all this Coleman has again made generic statements, unfortunately without any meat on the bones.
1. "What I can tell you is we are investing in data, we are investing in scouting, we are investing in [sporting director] Paul Watson and others and we are planning not only for January but for other windows as well."
Not sure how you do that, it just sounds like a crack has appeared in other non commital statements and more blarney has been thrown together that says not a lot.
2. "One of the things we needed to learn from experiences at this football club and others, was looking at windows in a very narrow band”
What was the change, what does it mean that things have ‘changed’. What is the methodology behind this and how is it going ? How is a man running a football club for six months got any experience to learn from over such a short period of time, Was that a swipe at previous chairmen, or even at the previous owners ? Coleman has very limited knowledge regards running a football club, so why the change ? This has a definite ring to it ‘We know what to do, but we don’t know how to do it’
3. "I have told you before: don't tell me what you are going to do, show me what you have done. The summer was a great success”
Well, ever since certain information has been leaving the club to a website such as this we have been asking many questions. This ‘reassuring’ comment is correct. But we are throwing straight back at them, indeed … "I have told you before: don't tell me what you are going to do, show me what you have done. The summer was a great success” Well what was successful ? What or where is the evidence that they see to back that up. We agree the summer recruitment effort was decent. However it only spent a fraction of what had come in from elsewhere ( around 14 million ) So, all we see is profit either being transferred in to investment in the LLC in the USA - we don’t know what is held within that account. Or, it’s within the Swans coffers to assist player recruitment in January.
Every statement from the club, that is strongly vetted, or the many employees of the club have been warned very clearly not to engage with anyone ( fallen on deaf ears in numerous cases ) adds more suspicion and questions certainly remain unanswered. Surely if you are going to announce changes ( bar those which should be correctly kept under wraps ) an open report designed for the press should be questioned. We are not seeing any ‘experienced journalist’ go anywhere near these issues. They are clearly in fear and those employed full time have either lost their investigate mindset or don’t want to rock the boat ?
You can only sum this up as a load of words that actually take you nowhere, maybe pretty apt as the year has progressed. Surely we aren’t seeing another Silver Shield attitude to running the club and obscuring the fans knowledge of what is actually going on ? Coleman should look back at their tenure maybe, he talks about learning from experience, well, the experiences of Silver Shield is a great place to start.