Vitor Matos Had Just 12 Games of Management Experience, and Now Swansea Lead the Championship

• Vitor Matos had just 12 games of experience as a frontline manager, at Portuguese second-division side Maritimo, when Swansea City hired him 11 months ago while worryingly close to the Championship relegation places.
• Swansea now lead the Championship as the division returns from the international break, their best start to a season since 2005.
• The club’s American owners have backed Matos with the biggest squad spending since relegation from the Premier League, working alongside a data partnership with Brighton-linked analytics firm Jamestown Analytics.

A Flame That Went Out, and a Flicker Returning

Swansea City’s flame burned brightly in the Premier League, through Michu, Michael Laudrup, League Cup wins and European nights built on a stylish brand of football known simply as the Swansea Way. Then it was gone. Eight years have passed since the relegation that brought a tightening of belts and a lowering of expectations, with ambition replaced by apathy. Now something is flickering again in south Wales. Swansea lead the Championship as it returns from the international break, and there is a growing sense that a club once renowned for its identity is heading in the right direction once more.

“You can see the ambition and the ideas are there,” says Steve Carroll, editor of the fanzine Swansea Oh Swansea. “People are talking about us in a positive way again.”

From Disconnect to Direction

Swansea’s relegation hangover took a while to clear. Taken over by American businessmen before dropping out of the Premier League, there was little sign of the club spending its way back to the top. Whenever exciting talent was unearthed, whether homegrown or bought in, it was invariably sold on to balance the books. “As soon as we could get excited and find ourselves in a reasonable position, then we’d sell a player and it wouldn’t be invested back into the squad,” Carroll says. “Fans would get fed up and the disconnect would come back, and we’d start again.” The cycle took its toll on a string of managers, from Graham Potter to Steve Cooper and Russell Martin.

New American ownership arrived in late 2024 promising to review how the club was run, and there was understandable cynicism at first. But Carroll says the new owners, US tech and marketing entrepreneurs Brett Cravatt and Jason Cohen, have delivered on their promises even as they stay largely out of the public eye. “To be fair, they’ve delivered,” he says. “When we’d get updates from the last owners, it felt as if we were being gaslighted. Now we can see clearly the ambition.”

The Manager With 12 Games of Experience

It has been a slow rebirth, and the turning point arrived in the shape of a 38-year-old with barely any senior management experience at all. “There was a time where I would watch Swansea and I wasn’t quite sure what they were, whether that was what I saw on the pitch or the players they were bringing in,” former Reading midfielder Jobi McAnuff recently told the 72+ podcast.

Worryingly close to the relegation places in November 2025, Swansea used data to identify the individual they needed, leading them to Vitor Matos, who had worked at Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp as an elite development coach but had just 12 games as a frontline boss at Portuguese second-division side Maritimo. His interview was said to have wowed the panel, including the club’s Ballon d’Or-winning boardroom figure Luka Modric, with sources saying the style he promised in his presentations is now playing out on the pitch. That style fits the old Swansea way, but with aggressive work off the ball that has the club’s running data surpassing many second-tier rivals.

“He had a really tough job when he came in, in terms of where Swansea were in the table,” McAnuff says, calling their start to the season “exceptional.” “From the minute he went in there he’s spoken about the DNA of the football club and wanting to tap into that, stylistically, getting them playing a little more to how Swansea fans would expect.” The style has been backed by substance, with the division’s best defensive record and a gritty comeback win at Lincoln City before the international break. A 3-1 defeat at promotion hopefuls Southampton was a reminder the club remains a work in progress.

A Recruitment Revival

Matos put the fundamentals in place last season and was backed this summer with the club’s biggest spending since relegation. Recruitment, once Swansea’s biggest strength before years of selling players just to survive, is showing signs of returning. The club has rebuilt its expertise behind the scenes, bringing in Jay Lefevre from Celtic as head of recruitment and Ben Stevens from Crystal Palace as sporting director, alongside a partnership with Jamestown Analytics, the data company owned by Brighton chief Tony Bloom that has also helped Hearts, Como and Saint-Gilloise.

Winger Joseph Opoku and midfielder Elijah Just, both World Cup goalscorers, were identified by Swansea before the data firm backed the club’s confidence to spend. Canada midfielder Stephen Eustaquio arrived from Porto, and Scotland international Stephen Welsh joined as a free transfer from Motherwell, in a window that signalled Swansea’s growing belief in its own direction. “You can see the difference,” Carroll says. “Before, we would look to the bench and know that changing things would make us weaker. Now the subs change games.”

Snoop Dogg, Modric and Small Steps

Last season’s leading Championship goalscorer Zan Vipotnik has had to settle for a reserve role this term, with former Southampton striker Ross Stewart now fit to support Adam Idah up front, while Swansea held on to Vipotnik despite a £10m offer from Hull City. The sale of midfielder Ethan Galbraith to Stoke City for a similar fee shows ambition has not meant ignoring the club’s economics, with spending improved through smarter recruitment rather than open-ended backing from ownership.

High-profile minority shareholders Luka Modric, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart have added to the club’s profile, less through the size of their investment and more through growing the brand and opening doors to new partnerships, including a tie-up with media and entertainment investors Shamrock Capital. Swansea brought in record sponsorship deals this season to go with other gains off the pitch.

“I don’t think anyone is expecting us to go up given some of the other clubs who are going to be fighting for promotion,” Carroll says, naming a play-off place as a realistic target. “But you can see we’re stronger and we’re moving in the right direction, so we’re going to enjoy it. You can feel the positivity and the optimism is back.” There is a long way to go, but a club that spent eight years drifting has at least found its way back to the top of a table worth taking seriously.

WRITTEN BY

Jarrod

Jarrod Partridge is the Founder of Futbol Chronicle and an accredited journalist with over 30 years of experience following international football. A member of the AIPS International Sports Press Association, Jarrod has covered matches at stadiums around the world, bringing first-hand insight to every match report, player profile, and tactical analysis he writes.

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