I agree though his style bored me to death, I still don't understand why he was omitted completely from jack to king though
I felt sorry for sousa, the guy was a genius the way he run the team and got us where we were with no strike force. He turned our defence into a fortress and i still say today that if jinx had listened to him and backed him we would have got promotion. He was right to walk away from the club in the end.....Great manager...
Sousa was a guy who, quite similar to Monk, had to work with what he had. He didn't just have no strike force, he had a whole offensive unit bereft of talent and/or confidence, but he had players who were willing to put a shift in, listen to his tactics and become a defensive unit that was hard to break down. We were unable to dominate games as we had under Martinez, but we conceded so little that it meant that we always had a chance as we usually always had 1 goal in us, if hardly ever 2. I don't believe his reign was as simple as "if Jenkins let him have the money for a striker we'd have been awesome". It was more than that, you could've put Aguero upfront for us and we'd have struggled to feed him service. Sousa adopted a defensive style because he believed that, with that group of players, the best chance of success came through that style. He spotted that if we'd opened up and played expansive every game, we'd have probably been worse off. However, buying Jordi Lopez and using him to replace Leon Britton still ranks as one of our worst managerial decisions in the last 10 years. Good managers assess the squad and work out a style that they feel brings the best chance of success. Sousa has shown at other clubs that he likes an expansive attacking style too, namely at Basel, but he's not naive enough to believe that every club he goes into should play the same style. However, after being bitten at QPR, a club with too much money and expectation for its own good, he should've known better than to jump ship from Swansea, a stable club that would never offer him much money in a transfer window, to Leicester, a club with new, rich owners. It was doomed for failure and was his own fault in my opinion. He would have known before taking the Swansea job that we didn't have financial clout. He recognises his mistake and has publicly admitted he was stupid to leave us on British television already. One thing we have learnt under Sousa and Laudrup is that our squad doesn't like slack training methods. Under both Martinez, Rodgers and Monk, hard and plentiful training produced results on the pitch. The squad complained under both Sousa and Laudrup that the training was slack with little emphasis on fitness, and players were forced to monitor and maintain their fitness by themselves. While some of them were capable of this, it leads to there being some lazier players who aren't as fit as the rest and, therefore, less capable on the pitch - no doubt frustrating and annoying the stalwarts who were looking after themselves. It is a little harsh that Sousa was left out of Jack to a King completely. He wasn't perfect, but in my opinion the fact that he turned his back on the club over lack of funds that he would have previously known we didn't have before signing a contract with us is what made the decision. He decided to leave the club, so more fool him. A fleeting mention of his name in one sentence would have sufficed. My main issue with Jack to a King was that Leon and Martinez were given so much airtime regarding the Hull game and Tate was omitted despite playing that day as well. I know he's not much of a looker, but I was disappointed to not see the biggest Jack bastard of all get the global recognition that he deserved.
I think the club turned its back on him as much as the other way round, the fact he was left out of jack to king is wrong imo, the swans have tried to omit him from history at the club, kinda like the yanks who try it in Hollywood. On Tuesday its 6 years since he signed for us, if the club doesn't reflect that on Facebook like they did recently with Laudrup, jackett and flynn then they should hang their heads in shame. I wasn't Sousa's biggest fan on the old BBC 606 pages, but he played his part and we are still reaping the benefits of that even today, Rodgers inherited a very good team and didn't have to do a hell of lot to get us promoted.
While I don't doubt that the club may have opposed him to a certain degree, but he obviously had a clear option and offer to stay at Swansea, or else he wouldn't be on record as saying that it's one of his biggest regrets leaving us and that it was a mistake. It was most certainly his choice to leave, and he's on record saying that he felt at the time that Leicester offered him the best career opportunity. My belief is that we probably wanted him to adapt his training methods and start a more vigorous fitness regime as his methods were relaxed and laid back. Our players didn't like this on the whole. Maybe we even suggested that we'd bring in a fitness coach to work with him. He probably threw his toys out of the pram that we wouldn't let him continue where he left off and he looked for other opportunities, eventually deciding on Leicester. In hindsight, he probably feels that he should've listened to the board here because, now, they are proven to know exactly what Swansea wants and needs. I just think he let a good thing go here because he didn't want to compromise how he worked. He did well for us in his season and maybe he deserve a mention, but I'll have no sleepless nights that he's not in Jack to a King. I hardly care. The fact that Tatey isn't mentioned tells me that the film wasn't designed to give everyone a mention, it was designed to tell a story. Unfortunately, Sousa's season was, ultimately, unsuccessful - even if all our fans do recognise that he solidified our team in the Championship and created a springboard for Rodgers to run onto - and for that reason it was probably rightly seen as redundant to the film.
How can you say his season was unsuccessful? If I remember rightly we landed up the highest we ever did in the Championship up until the play offs, we landed up 7th on 69 points with hardly a strike force to mention. We were favourites for relegation never mind missing the play offs by 1 point. I tend to think that Sousa was given hardly an option but to leave as quite obviously the club were not going to help him in anyway. Omitting the guy from jack to the king has been done deliberately, I know because this question was raised by someone to Kevin Johns in the Ponty Arts Centre where they showed jack to king, he laughed it off but hinted that it was done by Jenkins.
I don't call it unsuccessful, but ultimately that's what it was. Nothing happened. We didn't make the play-offs. The season came and went. That's the black and white of it. Obviously there's more to it than that, but I don't need to go into detail on my thoughts on it again. I thought he did well with the resources he had and came close to getting us into those playoffs which would've been remarkable. Highest position for god knows how long. Fair doos. But as for telling a story, it was hardly a season that needed to be featured in the film. Not much happened. As I've said, no sleep lost that he was omitted, but a sentence to say "Paulo Sousa came and went before Rodgers was appointed" is probably all that was needed. He obviously had an option to leave or not or he wouldn't be on record saying that he thinks it's a mistake that he left and he regrets it - he said it live on Sky Sports Goals on Sunday last year I believe. Obviously he sees something now that he couldn't see back then, and if he'd seen it then then he'd probably have remained our manager. As things stand, now he just regrets leaving.
Yes he said that he regrets leaving, but the problem is without the benefit hindsight we can't really say that the season was unsuccessful, I wonder if the season before was mentioned where we finished 8th? I guess it must have been as Martinez was in charge. If the Swans want to rewrite history then so be it, but as fans we shouldn't be negating a season or a manager because he left us under something of a cloud, he was part of our immediate history, and by having the manager before, and the manager after in this film just shows that in aspects we have a little bit of politics on this, as I said this mentioned by Kevin Johns. The point though, is if someone years from now is a fan of our club who watches this film they will think that we went from Martinez straight to Rodgers without anyone in between, so rewriting history because of an uncomfortable bit in the middle. That is not good, its like the yanks altering history in films to show that they did things in world war 2 when in fact it was the British who did it.
I don't believe it was mentioned. It certainly said nothing about the fact we finished 8th. Footage was shown from that season, but no footage was shown from the League 1 title winning season - in fact, I'm not even sure if it was even mentioned that we won that title. I can't remember accurately and it may well have been, but it wasn't shouted from the rooftops. Fact is, a film can only be as long as it should be. For me, I can see why Sousa's season was omitted even though I think a passing mention should have been included. While the film is chronological, there no written rule that says that it needed to address each season in detail. Personally, I remember certain games and the season as a whole, but on the whole, Sousa's season is forgettable for me. For some, I understand that will be different - maybe it is for you. So quite simply we'll have to agree to disagree. There are politics in there for sure, and the board probably omitted Sousa on purpose, but I can assure you that Sousa leaving Swansea was down to both parties not seeing eye-to-eye, not just the club hating the guy and forcing him out. Sometimes moving on is the only option, but Sousa's regretful feeling tells me that there must have been an option to stay as well, and one which he now realises is the option he should have taken. Maybe he regrets not listening more to what the board had to say because they're now so clearly proven in knowing what is right for Swansea City - maybe he realises that they were right after all. I don't know, I'm spitballing. Swansea's history won't ever be changed. A film can't do that. Anyone who takes an interest in the Swans and reads the record books or does some research will find whatever they need to find - including Sousa. Sousa's reign will certainly be a good pub quiz question in 10 years time, his name will live on in British pubs for years to come. He should be thankful. And to address your last point - omission of history and altering/rewriting history are two completely different matters not to be confused. Nobody is being fooled here, nobody is being told categorically that Sousa didn't exist. They just need to look a bit harder to find him.
Well lets see if the Swans mention the fact that it is 6 years on tuesday that he signed for us, they as I said mentioned all the others on facebook in the last few weeks, if they do not mention it then it stands to reason that they want to obliterate the guy from our history. This will be a sad thing to do as the club will come across as underhanded, and they are letting history be altered, next perhaps they will try and edit him out of wiki as well? His season for me was a big yawn, we hardly scored, we hardly attacked in the whole season, it was boring playing with no centre forwards worth a mention. But what it did do was gave us some back bone and we hardly had any goals scored against us, I think it was the season when we had the draws in our history as well. I still say that he played a bigger part of our promotion than Martinez did the season before, as the table doesn't lie he was more successful also, and he did that without Jason Scotland who scored 21 goals the season before, our highest scorer in the 2009/10 was a midfield player (Pratley) with 7 goals. If we had replaced Scotland with someone remotely a goal scorer then who knows what might have happened.
Indeed, he did well for us and won't be forgotten by any Swans fan who was around when he was in charge - despite a rather dour season. I think we need to give the club a chance to give Sousa a mention on Tuesday before categorically saying they are trying to rewrite history. All they've done is omit him from a film and that's it - they haven't rewritten history and said outright that Brendan Rodgers took over from Martinez, they've just omitted him, left him out, that's not half as bad. And making an accusation that they might edit him off Wikipedia is pretty unfair given that there is no reason to believe that they will. Even if they did (which they won't), Wiki is not the be all and end all of football knowledge on the internet, his tenure at Swansea is mentioned and listed on all sports websites - good and bad, amateur and professional, local and international. Given that they gave a mention to Michael Laudrup - who appeared to leave on much worse terms than Sousa - then it seems likely that they'll mention Sousa too. I'll also criticise the club if they fail to do so.
Sousa was a better manager than both Martinez and Rodgers imo. His downfall was not being a Yes man and would say it as it was. He argued with jinx about getting a striker as we were many peoples choice for automatic promotion but jinx failed to back him. There is no doubt in my mind that Sousa should have been the one to have taken us up to the premiership and through jinx's lack of vision we missed out and sousa could never have stayed after that......He left Rodgers with a very strong disciplined club and Rogers managed to take us up...BUT not before the majority of the board over ruled jinx who did not want to back Rodgers exactly the same over a striker......The rest is history and we have a lot of gratitude towards Sousa for laying a solid platform to work from....
I am not saying they will, as its wiki it won't happen anyway as the people contributing are mostly trying to put facts together, even if it is from their point of view. The point though is that they did exactly that in the film and even if he did have a forgettable season, it was just as forgettable as the season before. I think that the club should have just told the story of the club and leave it at that without the politics, for gawds sake they had Petty there in the film, and in the premier of the film, now how long did he last?
