STRUGGLING SWANSEA GIVE MANAGER CLEMENT THE BOOT

LONDON: Swansea sacked manager Paul Clement (pic) after less than a year at the helm as the English Premier League’s bottom club desperately search for a way out of the relegation mire.

As the season approaches its halfway point, the Welsh side are already four points adrift of safety following Monday’s 3-1 defeat at Everton, with just three wins in their first 18 Premier League matches.

“We can confirm that the club have tonight parted company with head coach Paul Clement,” the club said on their Twitter account.

Clement is the sixth Premier League manager to lose his job so far this season, following the dismissals of Frank de Boer (Crystal Palace), Craig Shakespeare (Leicester), Ronald Koeman (Everton), Slaven Bilic (West Ham) and Tony Pulis (West Bromwich). Swansea’s owners will be banking on fresh impetus from a new boss to lift the team up the table, with the likes of Leicester and Everton boosted by new appointments in recent weeks.

Clement took over at Swansea in January, replacing Bob Bradley, with the club bottom of the Premier League and tipped as odds-on favourites for relegation.

But he masterminded four wins from his first six games, including an impressive win at Liverpool, to earn himself the Premier League Manager of the Month award for January.

Swansea lost last season’s leading scorer Fernando Llorente and midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson during the summer transfer window, severely weakening their squad.

Former West Brom boss Pulis and Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs are among the favourites to replace him.