‘Swansea don’t need divine help to stay up’
Carvalhal the shock choice for troubled club Manager appointed days after Championship axe
Swansea City have surprisingly appointed Carlos Carvalhal as head coach just four days after he left Championship club Sheffield Wednesday. The Portuguese will take charge until the end of the season – with an option to stay on longer – as Swansea battle against Premier League relegation.
Following the sacking of Paul Clement, 52-year-old Carvalhal becomes Swansea’s fifth manager in two years, with the Welsh club having been determined to make an appointment before the January transfer window opens.
He took his first training session yesterday morning, after a deal was agreed on Wednesday evening, before being presented to the media ahead of his first match, away to Watford tomorrow. The focus will be on what transfer deals Swansea can complete, with the club accepting that serious mistakes have been made in the past few windows.
However Carvalhal said he had not yet discussed plans with chairman Huw Jenkins and even claimed that taking the job appealed to his “romantic side”.
“I deal with footballers,” he said. “If we need separate players I will try and choose them but the money is not what I want to talk about. I am allergic to money.” West Ham United are planning to bid for defender Alfie Mawson but Swansea are unlikely to sell for less than £25 million, while their priority is to bring in more creative players, including another striker.
Carvalhal will also attempt to rebuild the confidence of Renato Sanches, the Portuguese midfielder on loan from Bayern Munich. “I think he needs confidence,” Carvalhal said. “We can sometimes forget he is still a kid, he is learning. He needs a role in the team and time to understand the roles everyone has. He will be involved in the dynamic and, when he understands what we want, he can be a big player for this team.”
Carvalhal has managed 14 clubs in four countries, including at Sporting Lisbon and Besiktas, but was let go by Sheffield Wednesday after the weekend defeat at home to Middlesbrough.
Swansea considered a number of candidates, including Louis van Gaal and Ronald Koeman – both of whom are understood to have turned them down – and Frank de Boer, along with former West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic.
“In this moment, maybe if you ask 100 people who follow football, they will say Swansea are going to get relegated,” Carvalhal said. “Maybe some people will say we need a miracle. But when things are in the hands of me, it’s not a miracle you need. It’s in our hands and we can manage things. We don’t need divine help.”
Player-coach Leon Britton has been in temporary charge of the top flight’s bottom club since Clement’s sacking and his future role is yet to be defined, although he is expected to remain at Swansea.