Former Swansea City and QPR defender Angel Rangel has spoken on the recently departed Sheffield Wednesday manager Garry Monk, and his time in charge of the Swans.
Rangel, now 38-years-old, is currently in rehabilitation with QPR after rupturing his Achilles tendon back in July – his deal at the club expired, but QPR offered to help him through his recovery.
The Spaniard is best know for his time in South Wales though – joining the Swans in 2007, he would go on to make 374 appearances in 10 seasons, scoring 10 goals for the club.
Winner of the League One title in 2008, the Championship play-offs in 2011 and the League Cup in 2013 with Swansea, Rangel has discussed the change of management that saw Monk take charge in February 2014:
“Instead of going for a manager who had some experience and could carry on the Swansea way, we went for someone who had been captain of the club, Garry Monk,” Rangel told Planet Football.
“He was a fantastic team-mate and a great captain, no complaints there.”
Monk had spent the previous nine seasons at Swansea, making 270 appearance and captaining the club. He replaced Michael Laudrup when the Swans were still a Premier League outfit.
“He took the job and kept us up,” Rangel continued.
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“His first full season in charge he did a fantastic job, but we weren’t playing the same way. He didn’t want to play the Swansea way that he had played for so long himself and succeeded with two promotions.
“He decided to go for something more strategic in terms of formations. Being hard to beat, giving the ball more to the opposition and playing more counter-attacking football.
“It did work, but, in my opinion, that’s a way of playing where you will succeed in a short space of time, but you will become a surviving team in the Premier League. You need to have a clear identity, like we had before, to be able to establish yourself.”
Monk has since gone on to have several Championship jobs, all with varying degrees of success – he’s had stints at all of Leeds United, Middlesbrough, Birmingham City and most recently, Sheffield Wednesday.
After Swansea, Monk would fail to break the 60-game mark with any of his clubs, becoming a relatively unpopular appointment with most fan bases.
Now having seen Wednesday to a poor start to the campaign, he’s since been replaced by Tony Pulis, who got off to a losing start v Preston last weekend.
