Swansea City have sacked their head coach Luke Williams after seven defeats in his last nine league matches, prompting the Championship club to cancel an eagerly awaited fans’ forum scheduled for Tuesday.
Williams departs after a bruising run of results and a difficult January transfer window, with the club missing out on several targets having sanctioned the sale of their long-serving captain Matt Grimes to playoff-chasing Coventry. Among supporters there is growing dismay at the running of the club.
Swansea were only four points outside the playoffs towards the end of last year but Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at struggling Stoke proved Williams’ last game in charge. He leaves 14 months into a three-and-a-half-year contract after his team took four points from the last available 27.
The decision comes less than a week after the appointment as director of football of Richard Montague, with whom Williams worked en route to promotion to the Football League with Notts County in 2022-23. Williams predicted Montague “would help a huge amount” but made clear he had no role in his arrival.
Swansea’s first-team coach Alan Sheehan has been placed in caretaker charge after Williams’ assistant Ryan Harley and analyst George Lawtey were also dispensed with. Sheehan took interim charge after Michael Duff’s departure in December 2023, overseeing three wins from seven matches.
The fans’ forum has been rearranged for 3 March, with Swansea saying the process to appoint Williams’ successor is under way. The under-pressure chairman, Andy Coleman, and Montague are leading the search.
“This was a difficult decision and one that has not been taken lightly,” Coleman said in a club statement. “Unfortunately, since the turn of the year our performances and results have not been of the standard required at this level.”
Source: theguardian.com
