Bob Bradley’s appointment as Swansea City manager was greeted with a mixture of confusion, intrigue and in the cases of Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton, downright outrage that Ryan Giggs didn’t get the job. Should things go wrong, pundits are bound to say that Bradley only got the job because he is a compatriot of Swansea’s new American owners Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan.
Bradley is known for his work with the US national team, who he led to the last-16 of the 2010 World Cup having finished above England in the group stages. Since then he has managed Egypt during the Arab Spring, got newly-promoted Norwegian outfit Stabaek to the Europa League within two seasons and taken Le Havre within one goal of promotion to Ligue 1 last term. This is an impressive list of achievements in trying circumstances, even if his career to date has been away from the glare of Europe’s top leagues.
The American has more than 30 years’ experience as a coach, and his history of dealing with adversity will be very useful in south Wales because the Swans sit 17th in the Premier League. He is renowned as a conservative coach that typically opts for a safety first approach; a tactic that changed when Jurgen Klinsmann followed him into the USA job. We suggested three changes Bradley might make to get Swansea out of trouble.