Carlos Carvalhal is set to lose his job as Swansea City manager in the wake of relegation, with the club ready to cut him loose after their final Premier League match against Stoke City on Sunday. The 52-year-old’s contract expires at the end of the season and there is an option in the club’s favour that would enable them to keep him on, yet the way Swansea imploded in the final two months of the season has convinced the board that the Portuguese is not the right man for the job.



Although Carvalhal was appointed in December with half an eye on the Championship, where he led Sheffield Wednesday to the play-offs in successive seasons, the faith in his ability to manage Swansea in the longer term and mount a genuine promotion challenge has been eroded on the back of the disastrous run of form that saw the Welsh club sucked back into the bottom three in the last week of the campaign and all but relegated as a result of Huddersfield’s draw at Chelsea on Wednesday night.

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Swansea have failed to win any of their last nine matches in all competitions, in effect waved a white flag in their FA Cup quarter-final against Tottenham, and picked up only three points after beating West Ham 4-1 at the start of March, when they climbed to 13th in the table and seemed to be heading towards survival.

The turnaround up until that point had been spectacular – Carvalhal took 17 points from his first nine games in charge to breathe new life into a club that appeared doomed when he took over. Yet all momentum was lost during a run-in that saw Carvalhal adopt an increasingly cautious and negative approach, with Swansea scoring only twice in their last eight matches as he persevered with playing five at the back.

Swansea’s problems, however, extend way beyond the manager. They flirted with relegation in the previous two seasons and fundamental problems at the club have not been addressed since Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, Swansea’s majority shareholders, took control a little under two years ago.

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Swansea’s player recruitment since the Americans’ takeover has been dreadful and radical changes are needed in that department in the summer, raising questions about what role, if any, Huw Jenkins, the chairman, will have at the club in the future. Jenkins had previously suggested that he will review his position at the end of the season regardless of whether Swansea survived.

The club’s search for a new manager – their fifth in the space of 19 chaotic months – will take them in the direction of a young, ambitious and upcoming coach, more in line with the sort of appointment that was made during their rise through the leagues, when Roberto Martínez and Brendan Rodgers enjoyed such success with a clear playing philosophy. It is, in effect, time to start all over again.