The Premier League Owl
There’s an interesting article in The Mail this morning about Swansea City, and the reaction of their players to Michael Laudrup and his coaching staff. Supposedly, ‘secret meetings’ have been taking place between the players and Chairman Huw Jenkins to discuss dissatisfaction over the Dane’s management methods.
The principle issues seem to be over fitness levels and tactical approach, with some of the players allegedly yearning for Brendan Rodgers. For dramatic effect, words like ‘rebellion’ and ‘collision course’ are also thrown in.
This was written by Neil Ashton, who I usually have a lot of time for – but I’m not buying this.
Firstly, in terms of this loyalty to Brendan Rodgers, this first-team is now stacked full of players who were brought to the club by Laudrup himself – Michu, Chico Flores, Jonathan de Guzman, Pablo Hernandez, Ki Sung-Yong and Kyle Bartley. Given that none of those players were at the club during Rodgers’ reign, it’s a little unlikely that they’re making too many comparisons between him and Laudrup.
This has been happening with Andre Villas-Boas at Tottenham, and it’s the press’ way of trying to force a story out of a situation. They print allegations which are untrue, and create a question mark against dressing-room stability; the hope then presumably, is that the story develops a life of its own and starts to breed myriad issues. It’s very clever – it’s not good journalism, but then this is The Mail.
Remember, quite a few members of the media had Swansea down as relegation favourites and – in spite of a recent slump in form – Laudrup is making those predictions look quite silly.
Don’t ever underestimate how spiteful the tabloid writers are…
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