Laudrup sacked: four reasons Swansea fired their manager| News |

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published 5 February 2014

MICHAEL LAUDRUP has been sacked as manager of Swansea City a year after he guided them to their first major trophy success in the League Cup at Wembley. The Dane, whose side won only one of their last ten league matches, becomes the seventh managerial casualty of another bloody Premier League season, with rumours circulating that Fulham boss Rene Muelensteen could soon become the eighth after his relegation-threatened side crashed out of the FA Cup to Sheffield United. Laudrup got the bullet after returning to Wales from France, having given his struggling team two days off, it has been reported. According to the Daily Mirror, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. "Chairman Huw Jenkins’ patience snapped when the Swans' manager gave his players two days off this week, despite them losing a relegation scrap at West Ham on Saturday," it reports. There were other issues behind the decision claims the Daily Mail. It reports that "the club's hierarchy believed the Dane was no longer capable of inspiring the struggling team, with questions also asked about the intensity of his training sessions and whether he retained the support of senior players". The problems date back to the summer, says The Guardian. It reports that there were issues over the influence of Laudrup's agent, Bayram Tutumlu, who had a "growing influence on outgoing as well as incoming transfers". He was dispensed with but "although Laudrup and Jenkins vowed to put that episode behind them, it was clear that the two men were no longer singing from the same hymn sheet". There were also concerns about Laudrup's wider approach, says Graham Clutton in the Daily Telegraph. "The very ethos that led the club from the edge of extinction to the top flight of English (and Welsh) football, had disappeared with the signing of too many overseas players and a manager who appeared to be in it more for himself, than the greater good of Swansea City Football Club," he writes. Club captain Garry Monk, who was at the centre of a training ground row with Chico Flores recently, has been put in charge for the derby with Cardiff this weekend. The Telegraph calls him "a man who has been there from the start of the journey... [who] will hopefully galvanise the troops".