Laudrup is like most great players, they don't make great managers. That is because they were so gifted as players that didn't really have graft to be successful, whereas successful football management is all about graft. Long hours and lots of hard, hard work. The best managers were generally good players who got their results by sheer hard work. Laudrup came in, put the icing on top of Rodgers hard work, and to begin with it was wonderful. But he neglected the basics, he didn't graft, and it started to go drift away. After February 2013 Swnsea were distinctly poor, and not really Swansea. The person who has done the most damage to Laudrup's reputation as a manager is Rodgers. Seeing his success at Liverpool people now see Laudrup as having inherited a very well organized set up, which he neglected and most of his success was due to what Rodgers left him. The other thing that has damaged him (very badly) is that he has made it clear that if you take Laudrup, you get Tutumlu as well. That fact contradicts the tempting idea that Laudrup is a man of great integrity; he cannot be. Yes we keep hearing about 'Laudrup is linked with', but does it ever come from the clubs themselves, or just 'fans' and 'reports'? Recently we were given Espanypol Malaga Southampton Celtic Grenada A Danish paper said that Espanyol and Malaga were 'competing for Laudrup'. Except that two days later insidespanishfootball reported Sergio González being about to be appointed at Espanyol, and Javi Gracia at Malaga. There was no real interest in Laudrup, that was PR puff by Tutumlu to generate interest in his man. Southampton is owned by Katharina Liebherr (worth £3Bn). She likes guys who are dead straight and work bloody hard, she's Swiss. She will never volunteer to bring Tutumlu into her life and she won't want a manager who arrives at 10am and leaves at 3pm. On the other hand she would love Tony Pulis, her kind of guy. Shortly after Neil Lennon said he was leaving Celtic, the Daily Record published a list of candidates. The DR is very well connected at Celtic Park and their list was probably authentic. Keane and Mackay were on the list, Laudrup wasn't. There is no reason to think he was ever considered. The Scottish Herald don't have him down as shortlisted either. Grenada? Do they have a football team? Seriously, do they? Expect a steady flow of these stories in the Danish press from Tutumlu. He uses them for PR positioning, and they are happy to be used. I would be very surprised if they don't understand what is going on, but it makes good stories for Danish readers (and some aging Swansea fans who live many thousand miles from Swansea and for whom SCFC is a dream of their lost youth). I have seen a lot of comment that the sacking of Laudrup was handled in an unprofessional manner. I don't think it was. It followed the text book for a straight forward 'breach of trust' sacking. Employment law gives employees a lot of rights, on the other hand employees are required to be completely trustworthy and senior managers must be whiter than white in this. "You can't prove it" doesn't do any good. If a senior manager does nothing to avoid reasonable doubt developing about them then they cannot expect to be seen as trustworthy and the Courts will support their employer in getting rid of them. Without trust a company cannot function, the situation is intolerable, and Judges know that. When you sack someone who is in breach of trust, you always do it by letter or email, you do not allow them back onto the premises, because you don't trust them anymore. If you do allow them back in even for 15 minutes you weaken your case and their lawyer can use that concession against you. Also you don't say anything, either verbally or in writing, apart from the necessary bare minimum. Anything you say, there is a risk that their lawyers will find a way to use it against you, so you say nothing. It is brutal, but case law has made it that way, and you do it how the lawyers tell you. When something like this is going down, meetings, conversations, plans, nothing is what it appears to be, everything is done in a smokescreen. If someone says "we had a meeting about ...", it probably wasn't really about that, it was about a sub-text that will become clear later. Blood on the carpets. This is my guess as to what might have happened. I agree it is only my guess and worth no more than anyone else's guess, and there are many many other possibilities. We know that Tutumlu got hold of Swansea's January transfer targets, and I have read that he or someone successfully nixed the efforts to sign at least two players. How did he get that list? Who might have given it to him? Certainly not the players, because they wouldn't have seen it (they're bunch of flap jaws and this is highly confidential stuff). Monk as club captain would be the only player who might (might) be privy to the list. When I say the transfer targets I mean the guys they actually wanted, not the ones they talked about and leaked to generate the usual transfer window smokescreen, I mean the guys they really meant to sign. I suspect that board got hard evidence that it was Laudrup who told Tutumlu who the club's targets were. Assuming that is true (it is only a guess) it would not be enough on its own, but if Laudrup was then asked if he knew anything about how Tutumlu got that data, if he straight lied and said 'no' that would finish it, if he dissemmbled and said "I never got to the bottom of that" or such like, then that would also be enough - he wasn't open and honest and had given away vital company secrets. People who think in terms of criminal investigations often naturally dissemmble at first and only get around to the truth when pushed; here there is only one bite at it and if you dissemmble to begin with that's the end of it. Only something like "Yes, I owe you an apology, I made mistake, he asked me about some players in conversation and he worked out from my responses that we wanted them" etc would do. Genuine mistakes do not destroy trust (although might make you think the guy is an idiot). Hard evidence would not necessarily mean an email or letter or an overheard conversation. If a player was discussed only with Laudrup and no one else, and then they found that Tutumlu had put the poison in against Swansea, that would do it. The handshake? A handshake at the end of a meeting with an existing colleague? To me that would read as "It's over, this is goodbye" (but not in Germany for example where it is normal). That is one possible scenario. I could offer others, but enough already. Then we come to the legal dispute and the settlement. I think that Laudrup in fact got very little money in the settlement, I suspect no more than the cost to the club in legal fees and wasted time and lost focus if he had in fact sued, i.e. something like £250K. In other words go away and don't be a nuisance money. But he didn't sue, and that in itself is strange. I have been through a few legal disputes. One side says "we want some money", the other hopes they will go away and ignores them. To catch their attention, after a month, they post a writ, i.e. they sue, and they press for judgement asking for the case to actually be heard in court. Then the real arguments begin, the lawyers all show their knickers, decide whose got the biggest tackle and come to an agreement about 'how much', and they do it all very very slowly. It never gets finished in much less than a year and certainly not if you are talking about several million pounds. Why would the guys who will have to pay let it finish early? While it is still going on, they keep their money, so they keep it going. SCFC had no need to get it settled, but Laudrup would be less employable whilst he was still seen to be engaged in major litgation. You avoid taking on senior staff who are in the middle of a big court case, it will be a major distraction for them. If he didn't really have a case, then he would settle just after the end of the season, just as the vacancies start appearing; which he did. If he really had a case against the club worth £5M or such like, he would have stuck it out and tried to get the thing to court and finish it. He is not frigtened of litigation, he fought the tax evasion allegation and didn't fold as far as I know. I think the club had something very solid in their claim of breach of contract, or they wouldn't have handled it that way, they are not stupid. Also, if you have evidence of a breach of trust you must act immediately (taking time only to clear your actions with the lawyers). If you don't then clearly you did trust the guy somewhat, the situation was not intolerable, because you kept on working with him. If (if) Laudrup gave Tutumlu the January transfer targets I can see why the board needed him out in mid-season. They couldn't have him still around and leaking stuff as the summer approached. Any Judge would see that too. The Laudrup legal dispute always looked to me like PR from Tutumlu to give an 'explanation' of why he was sacked, I was even more sure of that after the infamous press conference where Laudrup looked deeply uncomfortable saying ... nothing. But the legal dispute and the press conference were put in place so that Tutumlu could spin it and protect his man's reputation, as is his job. "Well we are suing them and Michael explained everything in the press conference, as he said he would". Complete tosh but sounds good. I have done similar myself. The report in a Danish newspaper recently posted about "why it all fell apart". "Laudrup asked for a big transfer kitty in the summer and didn't get it". Oh yes? He had spent six months going on about how Aspas was coming (wouldn't shut up about it as I recall) and how wonderful it was going to be. So he got gazumped by Liverpool. That was his striker gone. Van Zweden found Bony who cost less, and is streets better than Aspas (he also found Vorm to replace de Fries). I would dismiss that whole story as more Tutumlu PR, including the suggestion (without actual numbers) of a large settlement. That having been reported in the Danish press can then be presented by Tutumlu as 'fact', "He got a large payoff because he had done nothing wrong! Look! There is the press report!" when representing his man to clients. I expect Laudrup got some money, Tutumlu needed that so he could spin it, but I just don't think it was very much. I don't doubt that Laudrup didn't get as much transfer budget as he wanted last summer, no manager ever does, but the club spent a lot of money, £17+M of it more wisely than Laudrup would have spent it, with Bony and Shelvey being the two best signings (Aspas? No, stop laughing, just stop it! Aspas and Alvaro as main strikers? Stop it! I'm trying to type!), . One final thing. Laudrup is not the big draw for players that Swansea want to sign that many think he is. If you are a young player, Laudrup is the guy your dad thinks was a footballing God, but you probably don't. You will have your own more contemporary idols. Anyway the club now has the "Laudrup was here" blue plaque on the side of the Liberty (metaphorically), and that is a permanent PR asset. I don't dislike Laudrup although for me he is a chameleon, I think his appointment was a good idea, I would have gone for it had I been SCFC. On the other hand I don't think his contribution was as great as some would have us believe and I admired the gutsy way the SCFC board tackled the problem head on as things went pear shaped. A tribe of smart cookies they are. They have a clear philosophy, they don't kid themselves they will conquer the world in 5 minutes, they don't panic (well not in public) and they don't do sticking plaster solutions. Very impressive managers. It will be fascinating to watch how far they can take it. It does amuse me to see your board being slagged off by 'fans' who would rather have crooks running the show who made their money by bribing their way to government concessions that print money, hugely profitable corrupt government contracts, or just plain corrupt trading and pyramid selling. Those are the 'real professional world class businessmen' that anybody with any sense avoids like the plague. They can't 'manage', they are just good at stealing. By the way, Monk has made no signings. Jenkins is DoF and it is he and the board who are making signings, in consultation with Monk. After their recent efforts I guess they are feeling pretty confident about their abilities too.
Michael Laudrup was unquestionably a great player but as stated great players do not necessarily make great managers. Whilst managers have to be tactically astute I think their most important attribute has to be man management. Fergie being a prime example of this. I think Michael Laudrup is too much of a gentleman to be a good man manager and this may be his downfall. The players attitude was not great at the end of his tenure but improved, whether you like him or not, under Gary Monk.
A big issue that you have seemed to not include is the rumour that there has been a long-standing issue between manager and chairman, were there not rumours that the pair haven't spoken for some months? Which if as you say this all revolves around a breach of trust from the January window, why the silence for much longer? This whole issue has been festering for some time, it wasn't a spur of the moment trust issue. Also what your saying, is the club, even with what they feel is a solid grounds for dismissal, paid ML to go away, thus just throwing money away. No chance. The club, if confident, would have fought it, same costs, and they would have come out squeaky clean, instead your telling me they chose to pay him off, and carry on the with the uncertainty, doesn't seem plausible to me. And yes, most ex players don't make great managers, but there are always exceptions, Guardiola for one. Now ML's record, speaks for itself, taking smaller clubs to heights they may never have dreamed of. A bad manager does not do that consistently. From what I have heard, and have seen over the season, the club and ML's plans were far apart. There has been something going on between those 2 for months, take HJ's contradicting of ML's words in the program, this whole thing has nothing to do with trust, but a personal grievance between chairman and manager. We all know ML was not going to stay forever, and maybe that played a part, ML wanting some big signings, the board not willing to with him supposedly leaving, the whole Monk thing, players going behind backs, the players moaning about training fitness. This has nothing to do with trust IMO.
It has drawn for the majority a line under his leaving .perhaps it was money well spent rather than involve the expense of lawyers and the like .?
It has not drawn a line under it, or have you failed to notice all the times he has been mentioned since the payoff, look, we are talking about it in a thread to talk about it, created just today, does that look like there is a line drawn under it. No. People may have now accepted that he has gone, but the reasons are not clear, so how can you draw a line under it? This is not what a club would have done, had it been in a strong position in regards to the dismissal. It would want to keep its reputation, instead we are still surrounded by uncertainty. Sorry, makes no sense.
To be fair to myself, my thread was bait for Terrorwit who clearly tried provoking people with his blatantly antagonising comment in a different thread. I am glad to say it worked
How do you or I know what the club should have done ,the Board made the decision to deal with the situation as they saw fit , with all the facts that they know rather than what we think we know , a vast difference Do we really need to know what happened and just as importantly why do you think we should know ?.As far as I'm concerned he's gone and thanks for what he did and I'm sorry it didn't work out but some on here are acting like a women scorned because he was found not to be perfect and that shattered their misguided illusions of the man .
Agree and sums things up perfectly......But he is History now and i dont care what happens to him anymore.....His life let him get on with it as long as he dont come back here..
BlueEyes what a great read, and I concur completely, but you'll not be popular for calling Laudrup a scoundrel...............
