If Swansea City have decided to get rid of their manager, then no-one has told Carlos Carvalhal.
The club may be destined for the Championship, the flickering red needle of hope may have gone into the implausible zone on the survival gauge, but the Portuguese with a liking for seafood and marine life metaphors is toughing it out.
His press conference on Friday featured a long statistical analysis of why his time in charge was not the reason the club are heading for the Championship.
He also claimed that talks are planned between himself and chairman Huw Jenkins after Sunday’s final Premier League game at home to Stoke and that he is unaware of any decisions already made over his future.
Carvalhal needs a 10-goal swing in the matches involving his team and Southampton, as well as for Stoke to be defeated and for Saints to lose at home to Manchester City.
Names of possible successors are already being touted – including Graham Potter of Swedish club FK Ostersunds, former Wales manager Chris Coleman and Dean Smith of Brentford – but Carvalhal has said both sides have put decisions on hold until Sunday night.
The reality, though, is Swansea’s owners have major doubts over whether he can lead a promotion charge from the Championship, or return the team to the passing style which was once their hallmark.
Carvalhal launched a staunch defence of his Premier League record before answering any questions at his pre-match press conference.
He insisted the 13 points from 17 games the club achieved before he joined in December is the reason behind their struggles, revealing “nobody wanted to come” in the January transfer window due to their ominous position.
Swansea have an option to extend Carvalhal’s contract for a further 12 months, but he said he has not been in the right frame of mind to discuss his future.
“I talked to chairman these last few days,” he said. “I was not with my head ready to talk about anything in the future. I said to him I’m not ready to talk in this moment, I’m affected by the last game, the next one.
“After we will talk and decide what is the best to Swansea, and I will see what is the best to me. I’m a manager until the end of the contract, it’s not a question of firing.”
Carvalhal admitted it is “not nice” to hear speculation around his future before the club’s relegation has been confirmed.
Asked if he believes Swansea want to keep him, Carvalhal said: “I don’t know, really I’m not worried about that. My conscience, I think we did our complete best, we did a very good path here with 20 points in 17 games [since I arrived].
“The unique person I deal with is the chairman, he didn’t tell me anything. To me it is not official, so when it is not official it is all the time speculation. In this moment it is not a reality for me.”
The Swansea City Supporters Trust has called for the removal of Huw Jenkins as the club’s chairman, but Carvalhal defended the club’s hierarchy over their efforts to bring players in during January.
“It was very difficult to sign players, not because the chairman didn’t do the maximum, he really did, not because the investors didn’t do the maximum,” said Carvalhal.
“But the reality is players didn’t want to come to Swansea. Nobody believed we can change position. It was very difficult for us to improve the team.
“We lost Renato Sanches who was playing better and better in that moment, [Leroy] Fer, who was an important player in that moment. We also lost [Wilfried] Bony. We never turned face, never complained.
“We knocked on all the right doors, but they didn’t even open them. Nobody wanted to come here, that is the reality.”
