Sousa Deserves Praise, We're A Point Better Off

It's fair to say that new Swansea City manager Paulo Sousa hasn't had the easiest of starts to life at the Liberty Stadium.

The Portuguese faced a tough job in equaling the superb work that Roberto Martinez did at the club in his 2-year spell - winning the League One title and finishing 8th in the Championship the following year.

Sousa had a number of hindrances to work against from day one. He was missing a significant source of goals in the squad, following the departures of Jordi Gomez and Jason Scotland, who both followed Martinez out of the exit door and up North to Wigan Athletic.

Not only that, but he had a number of injured players unavailable for the start of the season, including Joe Allen, Darren Pratley and Ferrie Bodde - three key midfield players.

And unlike at super-rich QPR, Sousa didn't have the funds to bring in multi-million pound players and to meet their high-wage demands. It took several weeks for Sousa to make plans to strengthen the squad - bringing in players which would fit in with our limited wage budget. That's not the only problems Sousa has had to deal with, he arrived with no backroom staff either, no coaches, physio and our important chief scout Kevin Reeves had also left for Wigan.

Considering all of these difficulties, Sousa has done an excellent job so far and he he hasn't received the credit and praise he deserves from some of our fans.

Just before we started our excellent run of form, some of the fans chanted 'Sousa Sort It Out', the next game they were chanting his name positively 'Sousa's Barmy Army'.

Some fans still aren't convinced by him and from time to time I hear fans saying that he's 'clueless' or should be sacked by Christmas. Maybe some of them should be reminded that we're a point better off this season than this time last season under previous boss Roberto Martinez, who didn't have a long list of problems to work with. He was managing a confident team who had just one promotion, and they were a surprise package in the Championship last year. This season though, our reputation of being a good footballing side is well known.

Paulo Sousa targeted a top 10 finish this season and while I didn't think we'd do it in the Summer, that target is certainly one we can meet, we have the potential to even push for the play-offs.

IN SOUSA WE TRUST
JACK ARMY!

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