Swansea City: Luke Williams departs but issues remain at club

Nobody will be more disappointed about Luke Williams’ departure from Swansea City than the man himself.

Williams walked away from Notts County to try his luck at Swansea after the Welsh club eventually turned to him having failed to appoint Chris Davies as successor to Michael Duff.

This was Williams’ chance to prove himself in the Championship, to show that he could cut it at a club attempting to swim with some much bigger fish in the second tier.

With Swansea in dire form and Williams gone after a little more than 13 months in charge, those looking on from outside may judge that he has failed.

The counter argument, however, is that Williams was not the problem at Swansea.

As the head coach, he has paid the price for an alarming slump in form which has Swansea glancing nervously towards the bottom three with 13 league fixtures remaining.

As the old line goes, you cannot sack the players.

Andy Coleman, Swansea’s under-fire chairman, is presumably not about to jettison himself, either, while the club’s director of football, Richard Montague, cannot carry the can for the club’s dreadful run given that he does not start work until Tuesday.

The fact that Montague, who had success working with Williams at Notts County, arrives at Swansea the day after his old Meadow Lane colleague departs says something about the muddle his new club finds itself in.

Williams’ exit had seemed increasingly possible with almost every game that has gone by in recent weeks, aside from the gutsy victory over Bristol City eight days ago.

Sadly for Swansea, success at Ashton Gate was followed by losses against Sheffield Wednesday and Stoke City.

Defeat by Stoke, another struggling side, proved to be the last stand for Williams, who will leave with a feeling of what might have been.