The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

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Swansea City
Sportblog
Bob Bradley could not escape the stigma
against a US coach in British football
The former USA coach failed to hit upon a consistent formula at Swansea City but his status as an
outsider in the Premier League hastened his downfall
It is hard to see Bob Bradley getting another run at the Premier League again after his short spell in
Wales. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
Bob Bradley had little reason to know how quickly he would be proved right when ruminating, at his
first press conference as Swansea City manager, upon the modus operandi of his new bosses.
“I don’t think they’d have got where they are by making decisions with the heart,” Bradley said of the
club’s owners, Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien. And while on this occasion he was second-guessing
the logic of his own appointment, it would be less than three months before he discovered just how
harsh the Premier League can be.
Firing a manager carries inescapable connotations, none of which anyone involved would really wish
to be levelled at Bradley. The duration of his tenure – the second-shortest of the Premier League era –
is trivia quiz material, ripe for lampooning, and one reading would be that Bradley, who also had to
wear the “American coach” tag from day one, was simply not equipped for the size of the job handed
him. A spell like this can scar perceptions of a career irreversibly but nothing about his work at
Swansea gives the overwhelming impression of Bradley as inadequate.
Bob Bradley had to go but blame for Swansea’s
plight lies in the boardroom
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