Uncle Sam vet should have read Big Sam’s playbook
POOR Bob Bradley didn’t stand a chance at Swansea City. And while you could argue that the Swansea board made the wrong decision in appointing the American coach in the first place, too many people had made their minds up about him before he had even started.
Swansea were always going to be in trouble this season and the new American owners seemed very hasty in sacking Francesco Guidolin, who kept them up last season.
Guidolin at least had experience of the Premier League, and he knew what was needed to survive.
Bradley was a brave appointment and a massive gamble. He is a coach with a decent worldwide reputation, but absolutely no Premier League experience.
Now the veteran coach of football in the States has been spat out by the Premier League after just 11 games. The root of the problem with Swansea is that they have conceded too many goals this season.
They won just two of Bradley’s 11 games in charge, kept just two clean sheets and they conceded 29 goals.
It is not good enough and the appointment didn’t work. It left the Swansea board with no option but to put Bradley out of his misery, even if he wouldn’t describe it like that.
But his card was marked before he even started.
Because he is different, and perhaps used words or phrases we’ve not heard before, he was ridiculed and mocked. He never really stood a chance. Yet when you analyse what he said, cut through the clichés and the claims, Bradley just talked exactly the same rubbish as any other Premier League manager.
It’s just that because he’s not Jose Mourinho or Pep Guardiola, no one listened or believed him or treated his words with respect. And unfortunately, when he said things like ‘PK’ instead of penalty, people laughed at him.
In fact there is a sketch you may have seen that Soccer AM have been running in the last month of an aggressive American coach. He’s bald, uses odd phrases to describe things and he’s called Brad Bobley. No prizes for guessing who that’s a dig at. It is funny, don’t get me wrong. And some of the things the character does and the terminology he comes out with are ridiculous and very silly.
But it is clear who it is aimed at and it is probably typical of the lack of respect Bradley has been shown since he moved to the Premier League. I don’t suppose he found it particularly amusing. The Swansea job was always going to be difficult and Bradley had to make a good start to his Premier League career. And it just didn’t happen. When he took over, I expressed concerns then that he seemed more interested in ‘philosophies’ and ‘systems’ and ‘patterns of play’. His first press conference was about ‘the process’ and ‘implementing ideas’. As soon as he said those things, I thought to myself, ‘mate, you just won’t have the time’.
What he failed to grasp was that it was no use setting up his Swansea team to go out and beat the opposition. It didn’t work. Sam Allardyce kept Sunderland up last season by making sure his side didn’t lose a game, first and foremost.
If they can keep the score at 0-0, they might sneak a win. And it does help when you have a goalscorer like Jermain Defoe. Now he has taken over at struggling Crystal Palace, you can bet that Big Sam will adopt exactly the same concept for the remainder of the season. And he will probably keep Palace up (especially if he manages to entice Defoe away from Sunderland to Selhurst Park).
Bradley went out from day one to play good, attacking football.
As Pep Guardiola is finding at Manchester City, you need more than that in the Premier League, because opposing coaches have the ability to find you, or your team, out. So teams coming up against City are not bothered by the coach’s reputation, and if they have to go long to counter the City threat, they are going long. Guardiola must be looking at this season, and his squad, and know that the Premier League is not as easy and as comfortable as he found it in Spain and Germany. And it’s nothing like the United States’ MLS either.
Having experienced a MLS game in New York before Christmas, and watched a lot of matches on TV, the onus is on attacking football – with very little consideration to the defensive side of the game – and it’s not particularly good to watch (which is the polite way of putting it). You might get away with that in MLS, but it is no way to survive in the Premier League, I’m afraid.
The choice for Swansea now is an important one, just as it was three months ago when the new American owners turned to an American coach, with American experience and ideas, and an American accent.
It will not be easy finding a manager who is available and capable of lifting the Swansea squad.
First-team coach Alan Curtis, who seems to have been at the club forever, said he felt Bradley was hardly given a chance, but worked harder than anyone he has known. And it was not enough. He says he would like to see a new manager who has ‘experience of the league’ but he might not get his wish.
It looks like a choice between Paul Clement and Gary Rowett, who have both worked and played in the Premier League, but still lack experience of managing in the division.
Whoever gets it, at least they know they will be given a chance when they do get the job.