Andy Robinson wants Steve Cooper back at Swans after Williams exit

Andy Robinson says Swansea City chairman Andy Coleman has “just got to get it right” as he seeks a replacement for Luke Williams, sacked as head coach after 13 months in charge.

And ex-Swans fans’ favourite Robinson says he would like to see former boss Steve Cooper back in the role, though admits that is “very ambitious”.

Williams left with Swansea 17th in the second tier following a seventh defeat in nine matches at Stoke City on Saturday.

“It had to happen,” said Robinson who watched the game at the bet365 Stadium for BBC Radio Wales.

“Unfortunately in football the buck will always stop with the manager. He selects the team, he brings the players in and as I said on Saturday if there was ever a game of football Luke Williams was going to win in this bad run of form it was that game.

“Unfortunately he never got the win and to lose 3-1 I think the writing was on the wall.”

While Williams has paid the price for an alarming slump in form which has seen Swansea slip towards the bottom three with 13 league fixtures remaining, chairman Coleman and the club’s board are also under fire for a series of disappointing appointments and poor recruitment.

“They need to make sure now that the new boss coming in is the right one because it’s been drastic at the football club now for two or three years and making small steps and not really getting anywhere,” added Robinson.

“I think the biggest thing about the structure and the make-up of the football club is a trust element, and the trust element from the board, who’ve certainly played their part in all of this.

“From the manager to the chairman and from the chairman to the manager and the players and when you lose that at any football club it’s a difficult one to get back.

“You thought Luke Williams was going to be the man but he [Coleman] has just got to get it right now. For the football club to move forward [it] has got to be done correctly.”

Assistant head coach Alan Sheehan has been named caretaker boss for a second time “on an interim basis”, with Swansea saying the search for a permanent successor to Williams is “already under way”.

Cooper, 43, left the Championship club in 2021 after leading Swansea to the play-offs in each of his two seasons in charge.

He then took Nottingham Forest to the Premier League via the play-offs and kept them in the top flight for one season before losing his job at the City Ground. He has been out of work since a 12-game spell in charge of Premier League Leicester City at the start of this season.

“There’s a man there who did an absolute worldy of a job at the football club, Steve Cooper,” said Robinson.

“Whether he’d drop down a level, I’d love to see him back at the football club but that’s very ambitious.”