Alan Sheehan wanted to concentrate on tomorrow nights away fixture at Watford but in unusual fashion he was pressed on the Swansea City head coach job yesterday. Sheehan was reluctant to pin his colours to the mast and still remains somewhat evasive as to his feelings on the role.

What would be those reasons for Sheehan not wanting to commit himself to Swansea City ? We’ve done some delving and asked the questions and this report comes from that work.

First off he has been at the Swans for some while after coming to the club at the same time as then Sporting Director, Paul Watson in 2023. Sheehan was well known to Watson from his coaching role at Luton Town and had recently been sacked from a similar role at Southampton with Nathan Jones. Since then Sheehan has seen how the work of the club impacts upon and affects the first team squad. He has witnessed a club that has cut back so much around the daily running of the business that he has players on extremely low salaries. Low salaries means only a certain type of player would be interested in coming to Swansea City. We’ve seen that with Ronald, Eom, Franco, Bianchini and Vipotnik. All of these players are on far lower than the majority of the Championship. Not in all cases of course but in many.

This is the reality of the areas the Swans are working in.

The recruiting policy is to get players in as cheap as possible, granted money is spent, and then offer a salary which is by far more than they currently get at their level. These salaries are not competitive with a lot of other Championship clubs. The player gets a stage to get noticed, and Swansea City is well known for that. They are very much respected as a club which develops talent in their academy and in the transfer market. This is very much happening now for Franco the ex Leixões and Moreirense player.

Sheehan will want to know if his better players are going to be staying so he can push for a much improved season next time around at Swansea. The reason is clear, he has witnessed numerous false dawns already at the Swans, the most recent only ended five weeks ago, a very disappointing transfer window. That is a conversation point for sure.

His own salary will need to be discussed, and currently as many will guess it is in no way a competitive remuneration for the job that he does. Despite a decent pay off from Southampton when he, Jones and Chris Cohen left, Sheehan is not on a salary commensurate with the job he does either before or now at Swansea. He is very much paid in the lower bracket, similar to the players. Don’t think it is an excessive salary it isn’t, and as per Martyn Margetson it is quite low. His team, his salary, the club expectations, the length of any contract and many other factors specific to him need agreeing. Nothing to date has been discussed, so why commit ? Seeing the club in desperation agreeing to pay Lewis O’Brien £26,000 a week (around 60% of his salary) via his parent club Nottingham Forest at the end of the transfer window will indicate to any employee when it matters the money is there. And that was paid out to save face and ego after a disastrous month of not a lot at Swansea City.

Even with that extra money paid out it is still less than the Swans expected to pay overall with the players sought in January.

Fortunately, and it isn’t always the fault of Andrew Coleman (Club Chairman) a new Sporting Director is now employed at the club. Richard Montague is someone we have written about on numerous occasions with some decent context on his football journey. He is very much Sheehan’s point of contact giving Coleman that leverage to hopefully not try and be in control of everything at the club from signing players to sorting out the cleaning roster. He now has a buffer IF he chooses to use it. It’s not dissimilar to player recruitment, you can’t be as daft to think that Coleman (as per Paul Watson) is only responsible for the failures and bad things at the club, and is nothing to do with any positives. Sheehan will want to be aware of the recruitment policy, how it is done and what impact he can have on it. Currently the club have Montague of course, and before that Brett Cravatt and his team. They remain and will continue to be in the clubs employ. Cravatt is a Director who holds a decent share of the club and has pushed forwards some of the data the club collects to the Swans advantage.

The recruitment of Melker Widell a very good example.

Alan Sheehan will also want to see how this works more specifically - and how that impacts on his own decision making. As it stands the club won’t make any comment on Alan Sheehan’s future, and despite five different ways to ask the same question Sheehan won’t answer specifics either. You cannot fault those questions being asked, but you won’t get answers just more questions.

The final key area for Sheehan will be his own staffing, he has already made it clear those that remain at the club cannot continue working at the rate that they are. He has mentioned the loss of three employees at coaching level. They haven’t been replaced and in turn Martyn Margetson, Kristian O’Leary, Martyn Margetson and now U21 head coach Anthony Wright have had to step up and are working very long hours. There is also the loss of real time analytical data which is specific to the way the Swans operate within a game. There has been some assistance with this, but Sheehan has made it known to Montague this cannot remain the norm. He needs properly employed permanent members of staff to do this.

There are around five appointments to be made within the coaching area and associated roles at Swansea City, there needs to be a clear strategy, and we think Montague will provide this. However, he also needs assistance and the raw side of football recruitment still exists. Those areas that the human eye can see, that requires a network, be that of employees, agents or scouts run by a football recruiter. That position is now available at Swansea City and is yet to be filled. Data doesn’t answer every problem, experience and commitment is needed.

These key areas for Sheehan need to explaining, it’s pretty unprofessional really to expect him to answer that elusive question, ‘do you want the job at Swansea City’ without considering these unanswered issues. You won’t hear Sheehan list his concerns about his own future in an interview for a game away at Watford. You need to delve deeper and talk to people who are aware of what Sheehan wants clarified, or to the man himself in confidence. However, not even that will get you the perfect answers. Journalism is about thinking laterally and asking the questions that are properly researched not off the cuff responses to answers. It won’t lead to a great deal. As much as anyone wants to know the current position, those answers aren’t there, but indicators are. Personal matters that need to be known won’t be in the public domain at any point.

Swansea City need to step up of course, appointing Sheehan, and that potentially will come with his own choice of coaches is the cheapest option available by a very big margin. If he is to be the next permanent head coach at the Swans that will suit the budget and the people at the club. They won’t have to pay excessive amounts to secure a head coach already employed, pay off his contract, his team and then agree terms that Alan Sheehan can currently only dream of. That’s why the next manager market has gone dry or is now being filled with guesswork. It suits Swansea City to say this is now a longer term decision, they are again saving money by doing so. This will be why Sheehan will most likely be given the interim role until the end of the season, it suits him to continue for now - and it suits the club.

Personally I can’t see any situation where he will get a permanent contract next week during the international break.

Sheehan’s own parameters for a permanent role clearly haven’t been discussed yet or he wouldn’t be making it known a lot of questions need to be answered. You can expect this dilemma (for some) to continue unabated for a while longer. Whilst Alan Sheehan and his overworked staff continue in this role it suits the budget, but as he has stated indirectly this cannot continue. When these talks do take place you can expect Sheehan to be wanting some very specific answers based on his experience of the clubs hierarchy to date.

His future at the club could now be one of many other key questions as well. If he stays and doesn’t take the main role will he be out of a job, plus will all his staff remain ? Will a new man at the helm want a complete clean out thus changing the whole dynamic of the coaching strategy at Swansea City ? It isn’t as easy as stating, yes I want the job, there are some major life changing decisions to be made for Sheehan. He is a coach who has to date proven he can change strategy to meet with the differing challenges fixture to fixture to an extent at least. That has given Swans fans some hope that a reasonable mid table finish could happen come May. However, we think this decision on Sheehan isn’t close, the next stage will be to decide if he continues in a temporary role. That will happen during the international break, and at no time do we expect it to be made permanent then.

Sheehan isn’t under any pressure to make a decision. We have only seen him in a recovery role during his two stints in charge. We haven’t seen him under the type of pressure that could lead to him losing his job. How he would react to that is unknown. His character is quite reserved, almost nonchalant at times, he is a man who gives little away.

If the Swans are working hard to deadlines right now to appoint a new head coach we would be very surprised. That doesn’t mean to say they are not aware and haven’t spoken to a few candidates, they have. But there’s no reason to push it nor make it an extremely urgent priority, they have a man in place who could well be the next permanent head coach of Swansea City. Why make it hard and spend time on his replacement when the man you have is in pole position ?

The answers are not available because they are not available, it really is as simple as that.

Photographs Swansea City AFC & open source

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