Bob Bradley Says He Wishes Swansea City Never Offered Him Manager Job
Former Swansea City boss Bob Bradley has revealed he wished he never got the chance to manage the Welsh side following a short and disappointing stay in England's top-flight.
The 60-year-old became the first American manager in the Premier League when the Swans came calling in October 2016.
However, following just 11 games in charge, the New Jersey-born manager was relieved of his duties by the club's US owners and ahead of his return to the touchline with new MLS outfit Los Angeles FC, Bradley told ESPN he wishes the chance never came along, although it was an opportunity he could not refuse.
"When Swansea came, I knew the pluses and the minuses", he said.
"Do I have regrets? I wish they hadn't come and called, quite honestly, in that respect because the situation required real work and some time, and if they didn't think I was the right guy, and everybody wasn't on board -- and 'everybody' needed to not just be the two American owners, but the chairman, the supporters' trust and more of the supporters -- look, if they didn't think I was the right guy, they shouldn't have called.
"Now, when they called, and I spoke to them and I told them how I felt, when the moment came to go for it? Yeah, I said, 'Look, the hell, man, I'm going!'
"If you have second thoughts and doubts you don't go anywhere. I wouldn't have gone to Egypt, I wouldn't have gone to Norway, I'd still be in college soccer."
Bradley went on to claim he believes he was set up to fail with Swansea, despite recording only a 0.73 points per-game return in his short tenure.
"Probably", he replied when asked if the odds were stacked against him, potentially unfairly.
"But even if you're set up to fail, you know how football works? You can do everything wrong and a few balls bounce your way and in 11 games you manage 20 points and nobody's talking that way. That's how football works.
"For all the big mouths that criticize, in almost anybody's coaching career, you can find 10-, 11-, 12-game stretches where the points just don't come. That's just the way it works. Not just in our game but in any game.
"So you either go somewhere where people recognize what you're all about, and know that to get it right it's going to take some time, or you go places where at the end, when the wind starts blowing, everybody gets nervous, everybody's shaking, everybody's covering their own heads, and you know what happens at that moment."
