We’re at the stage of the season where folks, for want of anything better to do with our dismal lives, start to rank anything and everything, with the end of season gongs providing plenty of distracting pub chat. One such hotly debated topic is the Manager of the Year award. With just under a month of the season to go the likes of Mourinho, Pardew, Pulis, Koeman, Wenger and, unlikely as it seemed a month ago, Ragin’ Nigel Pearson, are all worthy contenders.



Garry Monk is one name I’m almost certain won’t win but it doesn’t diminish his remarkable achievements one jot. The job he has done this year, when all’s considered, has been excellent and, bearing in mind he was a real favourite to win the pre-season sack race, completely unexpected.

With his serene media persona, fondness for suit/jumper/tie combos and suave barnet, that gives him the demeanour of a WWII RAF pilot, it’s incredibly easy to forget that he’s just 36 years old. To put it another way, he and walking red card, Wes Brown, were in the same year at school.

It’s been a extraordinary turnaround for a man who took the Swansea job last year in the most trying circumstances – a dressing room cleaved in two, down a fairly major Spanish fault line, by the poisonous final days of Michael Laudrup’s reign. Swansea were in trouble, just two points above the drop zone on February 4th when the dashing Dane was axed by chairman Huw Jenkins. Monk, armed with zero formal coaching experience had to extradite himself from the dressing room strife he, as club captain, had no doubt been well embroiled in and learn to lead on the hoof against the backdrop of very real relegation peril.



It looked initially to have been a disastrous move when two wins out of 10 league games saw the club peer over the precipice, but Monk repaid the board’s faith with three wins from the final four games to secure safety.







Monk during his mid-career sabatical taken to film This Is England.

Despite this late show, sticking with the fan favourite was still seen as a risky approach. Horror stories of club men turned boss loom all too large – Alan Shearer, Stuart Pearce and the current John Carver car crash spring immediately to mind.



These concerns were felt by those close to club. We spoke to Chris Carra, Editor of ForzaSwansea.com and author of Swansea City's Greatest Games.



"Garry Monk had always been a loyal Swansea City captain, and Swans fans generally applauded the decision to make him manager after Michael Laudrup's departure in 2014. Along with some others, I was perhaps a little unsure as the Premier League is a tricky stage on which to make your managerial debut, but Monk has barely done any wrong since taking over. He's broken the Premier League points record and has built on the good work of previous managers to build a team capable of challenging for a European place. Long may he continue at Swansea."



The decision to back the former captain has been vindicated in truly all areas by Monk, however, as his first full season comes to an extremely satisfactory denouement. Not only has he retained the easy on the eye pass-and-groove footy The Jacks have made their trademark but the team are on course for their highest league finish for 34 years, something achieved whilst also keeping the coffers in rude health.

This low-key success in the transfer market is something that’s possibly the most surprising element of Monk’s short reign thus far. Last summer saw large swathes of established quality gutted from his squad as international players like Pablo Hernandez, Michel Vorm, Michu, Jonathon De Guzman and Ben Davies all high tailed it whilst other senior cornerstones of Laudrup’s trophy winning outfit, Jose Canas and Chico Flores, also shipped out. Some of these names were certainly waved out of the door by the club following off field turbulence in the end, but it would be foolish not to admit a whole lot of footballing ability went with them.

The creaming off of talent wasn’t finished there as Swansea caved in to Manchester City’s demands and let the man responsible for 36% of the club’s league goals at the time he did one to the AFCON, Wilfried Bony, go for a princely sum this January.

The response to this has been sensible investment in capable but undervalued English players, supplemented with more established names on fiscally astute deals. This policy began the summer before Monk’s permanent appointment with the acquisition of marvelous maverick Jonjo Shelvey and has been followed by moves for the likes of Jack Cork and Kyle Naughton, whilst senior international talents Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jefferson Montero and 30 cap, 26 year old Argentina centre half, Federico Fernandez, were recruited without breaking the bank. Throw in snaffling two Champions League standard players, Bafetimbi Gomis and Lukasz Fabianski, on free transfers and you have a recruitment policy that looks head and shoulders above most in the division*.



*politely ignoring for the sake of my own argument the utterly mental 3 year contract doled out to former Championship net-swerver Marvin Emnes…

Considering that the club’s offering the exact opposite of silly wages - they sit joint 14th in the Premier League in terms of wonga spunked on players’ weekly wedge - and that South Wales, with the greatest respect, is hardly the epicentre of the world, speaks volumes of the appeal of good quality football. Next time Sunderland and Newcastle start moaning about the difficulty of drawing talent to the north east perhaps they should look a little closer to home before bellyaching that old favourite, ‘But, but… the London club bias… Wah, wah, wah’.

Without wishing to ram home the point, all this from an absolute rookie is remarkable. Bear in mind that football's preeminent Damian Lewis lookalike only just started work towards his UEFA Pro License mere weeks ago and that he spent all but the twilight of his career milling around the lower leagues. Monk’s learned a hell of a lot about not only coping but actually thriving at the very top level of the sport in a very short space of time, something signified by a handful of marquee results by the club in the league this year – notching league doubles over Manchester United and Arsenal as well as picking off Southampton away.

Considering his clear eye for value in the transfer market, an apparent ability to coach improvements in players, his commitment to quality football, calm head and vast potential for improvement as a manager, Swansea’s next major transfer battle could well be holding onto their burgeoning young boss.

Even if he’s overlooked for the Premier League Manager of the Year next week, the pious Monk can sleep rest assured that he's got our vote.



All hail MatchPint’s Manager Of The Year Who We Thought Would Be Way Crapper Than He’s Turned Out To Be 2015!



Pete Starr

MatchPint : Like / Follow



Need a pub showing Arsenal v Swansea tonight? Find your nearest boozer showing the game with MatchPint.