Swansea City

In the last week Swansea City confirmed that they had hired Paul Clement as their new Head Coach, their 3rd appointment in that role this season. The Swansea City owners Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan are reported to have sacked fellow American Bob Bradley because Bob had “gotten” into an argument with them after hearing them refer to Swansea City A.F.C as “Swansea’s City Soccer Squad” behind closed doors. Poor results were apparently also taken into account before Bob was sacked. The appointment of Paul Clement has been seen as perhaps one last roll of the dice in The Swans bid to stay up but the Swansea owners have been remarkably more relaxed about the whole affair. They are rumoured to have stated “Come on, he can’t be worse than the last two.”

When the owners were questioned as to why they had appointed Paul Clement they pointed to his C.V. “Anyone who has been at ‘Paris’ German-Saints’, and ‘The Real Madrid’ must be a great manager, we’re amazed he came to us to be honest.” They might have continued “He’s won UEFA’s League Of Champions with Chelsea and we’re hoping he’ll be able to use that experience to help us grind out draws away from home to help in our bid to survive relegation to the Barclays Little League.”

The owners have also been asked recently about their potential transfer targets with many pundits believing strengthening the squad with new signings is key to The Swans’ survival hopes. They were cagey in their response saying they had a few targets in mind but we’re not willing to disclose any names. When asked how much they were willing to spend Jason Levien let slip that “It shouldn’t cost too much.” Despite Steve Kaplan elbowing him sharply in the ribs repeatedly Jason went on to reveal their plan to bring Landon Donovan out of retirement to play for Swansea. Despite being what many would consider too old at the age of 34 the owners went on to claim “He’s still got it.” Steve Kaplan referenced Donovan’s 57 goals for his country but it won’t appease many fans or pundits judgement on the player, the main concern being his age and lack of match fitness and as one fan put it “He isn’t fit to lick Gylfi Sigurdsson’s boots clean.”

It will be interesting to see how Paul Clement gets on at Swansea for the rest of this season but at least if things go badly he won’t be in any doubt over his future.

And of course, none of this really happened…