No easy task for Matos as Swansea search for better

Swansea City have played 17 games this season and have 17 points on the board.

Carry on at such a miserable rate for the rest of 2025-26 and the Swans will be in grave danger of dropping into League One for the first time since 2008.

The good news for Swansea is that the end of the season is more than five months away, so there is still the chance to make something of this campaign.

But the pre-season goal of pushing for a play-off place seems a very long way off right now.

Swansea finished 2024-25 with a flourish, then enjoyed what was widely regarded as their best transfer window in years in the summer.

Yet for the moment, too many of Swansea's new recruits have not delivered and many of the club's older faces have failed to produce consistent form.

It is hardly a recipe for success.

Swansea's failings have already cost Alan Sheehan his job, with the Irishman sacked just over six months after he was given a three-year deal.

Now Vitor Matos has the reins – and a four-year contract – after Swansea paid compensation to bring the 37-year-old to Wales from Maritimo.

New bosses sometimes enjoy honeymoon periods. Not Matos.

There were loud boos at the end of his first game in charge after Swansea were beaten by Derby County.

Presumably, the supporters' ire was not aimed at Matos, who cannot be blamed for Swansea's current plight given that he has only been in charge for a matter of days.

The boos were more likely the result of frustration over Swansea's abject form given that they started the season with renewed hope.

There was a genuine belief – within the club and in the stands – that Swansea could push on in 2025-26 after four successive mid-table finishes.

Yet with more than a third of the season now gone, Swansea's followers once again find themselves hoping merely to avoid a relegation scrap.

Matos, who had managed just 11 league games in the Portuguese second tier before moving to Wales, is the man charged with turning Swansea's fortunes around.

And for the moment at least, he is having to work without the various members of his Maritimo staff who he wants at Swansea, with the Welsh club still attempting to finalise the potential appointments.

In his press conference after defeat on debut, Matos kept referring to the need for work on the training ground as he looks to revitalise a team who have managed only two league wins since August.

Yet in the Championship, the frequency of fixtures means there is often little time to focus on anything other than preparation for the next game.

There will be the usual post-match recovery work after Derby, for example, and Swansea travel north on Friday for their weekend game at West Brom, leaving little time for tactical sessions on the training pitch.

Amid the flurry of fixtures, Matos must try to get his message across having never previously worked in England's second tier.

All things considered, it does not look an easy task.