The Time Lord

This time last year Steve Cooper was under a fair bit of pressure; an excruciating 0-0 home draw with Queens Park Rangers left the Swans clinging on to a play off place on goal difference, and the Jack Army was losing patience with both results and the quality of the football on show.

The early days of Cooper’s reign, where we sat proudly at the top of the table by the time the first international break came around, were a dim and distant memory as promotion form turned into relegation results.

The free flowing football of the Potter era immediately before Cooper’s also steadily degraded and it was that, more than the results, which left the fan base split on the manager’s suitability to be Swansea City manager.

It was a pretty even split too – for every fan that bemoaned the quality of results and performances there was another that pointed out the mitigating circumstances that Cooper was operating under.

As we all know football is a ruthless game, and it would have come as no surprise in the lead up to Christmas 2019 if the club took the decision to dispense with Cooper’s services and bring in an alternative in time for the January ’20 transfer window.

However Chairman (at the time) Trevor Birch never wavered in his support for his manager and instead backed him to the hilt.

You could make the argument that the club couldn’t afford to sack another manager, but I believe it was more a case of Birch and the rest of the club hierarchy believing that Cooper would come good…in time.

Then of course Cooper got another break in the form of football shutting down for three months as the Covid crisis evolved from something worrying happening in China to a full scale global pandemic, resulting in societal shutdown across Britain.

What we’ve seen since then has been a dramatic upturn in both results and performance levels.

A big part of that has been the change of formation with three central defenders and two wing-backs which was initially forced on Cooper through injuries. But let’s credit the manager for being open minded enough to persist with that formation going into this season when he could easily have reverted to his more tried and trusted methods and formations.

As this season has progressed we’ve seen Cooper mature into a pretty good club manager! He’s produced a side that is incredibly tough to beat but also capable of some thrilling football. His tactical awareness has developed and he’s (thankfully) learned how to deploy his substitutes!!

With his side sitting proudly in fourth place in the Championship table, with two games in hand over their rivals, and right in the mix for automatic promotion, there’s no doubt there are envious eyes looking at Cooper.

The question he would ask himself if an approach came in is…would he get the time he needs somewhere else?