‘An option the Swansea hierarchy need to leave well alone’ – Aston Villa update provides fresh twist in manager hunt: The verdict | OneFootball

‘An option the Swansea hierarchy need to leave well alone’ – Aston Villa update provides fresh twist in manager hunt: The verdict | OneFootball

Icon: Football League World

Football League World

·26 July 2021

‘An option the Swansea hierarchy need to leave well alone’ – Aston Villa update provides fresh twist in manager hunt: The verdict

Article image:‘An option the Swansea hierarchy need to leave well alone’ – Aston Villa update provides fresh twist in manager hunt: The verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict’ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

John Terry has left his role at Aston Villa amid links to the Swansea City job.


OneFootball Videos


Sources exclusively informed Football League World earlier this month that the Swans were eyeing Terry as a Steve Cooper replacement, with Jody Morris lined up to be his assistant.

But would that be a good move from the South Wales club? And after John Eustace turned them down, is Terry the right man for the job?

We quizzed our FLW writers…

Adam Jones

Swansea City seem to be employing a strange strategy for their new managerial appointment.

Although it’s great to see them willing to give inexperienced coaches a chance, with John Terry yet to become a manager during his coaching career so far, a more experienced appointment is probably exactly what the Swans need in their current situation.

And the current state of play at the Liberty Stadium isn’t exactly ideal. They have just lost a manager that got them to the play-offs two seasons in a row and took them within 90 minutes of Premier League football.

Considering the limited amount of time there is for any new man at the Liberty Stadium to assess his squad, identify potential targets and deal with players who are surplus to requirements at the club, bringing someone in who has no managerial experience and won’t have a full summer to shape his squad would be a major disaster in my eyes.

If he was appointed shortly after the end of last season, Terry would have been a good candidate for the Swans but not in this current situation.

This is an option the Swansea hierarchy need to leave well alone.

1 of 22

In what year were Swansea City formed?

1912

1920

1928

1936

Jordan Rushworth

Appointing John Terry would be a gamble for Swansea City but it is not the sort of thing that they have been deterred from doing with recent appointments and they were prepared to take a chance on John Eustace as well. Having now departed Aston Villa it would not be a surprise at all to see him now end up at the Liberty Stadium.

Terry has built up a lot of experience working alongside a quality manager in the shape of Dean Smith and he has seen what it takes to build a side capable of challenging for promotion from the Championship. That is something that could make him well placed to take over at Swansea and look to emulate the sort of success that Steve Cooper enjoyed with them during his time in charge.

The former Chelsea defender also spent time playing in the Championship towards the end of his career with Aston Villa. That means that he knows the division inside and out and he will therefore knows the qualities that will be needed in his squad to have a successful campaign next season.

The one issue might be that Terry is going to have work on a budget and Swansea could be losing the influential Matt Grimes from their squad on top of other key players who have left. Those are major issues for a new inexperienced manager to sort out, but he will be eager to prove his worth and show that he can resolve such problems.

Chris Thorpe

This would be a bit of an odd move in my eyes as Terry has little experience of being a manager.

I know that Swansea want to go down the route of appointing another up-and-coming coach but I think this would take the biscuit a bit.

Far too many managers are getting top jobs off the back of their sparkling playing careers and I just don’t think it should be like that.

Would John Terry be able to get Swansea into promotion contention in his first season of management? It’s a big ask even for the more experienced candidates.

The next appointment has to be a well-calculated risk as the move for John Eustace looked to be, not a shot in the dark at the first big name that pops into your head.

View publisher imprint