With four games to go Swansea City are up in eighth with 50 points which is already eight more than they had at the end of last season and Swans supporters know they have Garry Monk to thank for their success.

Following ten years as a centre-back for the Swans Monk crossed over to management when Michael Laudrup was sacked from the job. It wasn’t always easy but in his first season, four months of which he was in charge, the Swans survived a relegation battle and Monk was rewarded with a three year contract.

This 2014/15 campaign started well with Swansea winning all of their August fixtures including a famous 2-1 win against Manchester United at Old Trafford and they cruised into the 3rd round of the League Cup by beating Rotherham United. Since then Monk’s men have lost 12 times in the league which is only twice more than both Liverpool and Tottenham who currently sit in the Europa League spots a feat that all at the Liberty stadium should be proud of.

As this has been his first taste of management Garry Monk has had to learn on the job. The fact that it is a Premier League team that he has been leading has made the job that much more difficult and therefore his achievement is even more inspiring.

Monk spent a decade at the club and had the honour of being their captain so you could say it has been easier to manage Swansea, a team he knows inside out, but a genuine aptitude for getting the most out of his players has also had to exist. Remarkably he is only a few years older than some of his squad and at 36 Monk could still be playing professionally like fellow defender Rio Ferdinand, who is four months older than him, but instead he has sacrificed his own career to begin life as a coach.

With the Swans likely to finish above Everton and Newcastle Monk is considered to have the potential to be a future top manager and whenever managers of small clubs get their teams to punch above their weight then invariably they get associated with a move to a bigger club and this case is no exception. Sam Allardyce is expected to leave West Ham as his contract is nearing its end and yet negotiations for a renewal have not begun. The Hammers are sitting in 11th so a move right now to Upton Park really doesn’t look like a step up and Monk was right to recently distance himself from these rumours.

After all he is happy where he is. And with only eight points separating Swansea from a possible place in the Europa League that should be their target in the coming years. But not yet and Monk has rightly claimed that his side are not quite ready to play in a competition which would see them playing fixtures on a Thursday evening when they should be preparing for the weekend games. Where the tournament was once seen as a good chance for an emerging club to make a name for themselves now many Premier League teams actually think it detracts from their domestic campaign and thus would rather avoid it.

Swansea need to focus on the league for another season and of course strengthen first in the upcoming window then the following year perhaps it’d be a good time to dip their toes in.

It is still early days for the young manager and the next few years will prove whether he has what it takes to survive not only in the role but in this league. But so far he has shown Swansea were right to give him a chance, now we’ll have to wait and see just how far he can take it.

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