With Garry Monk under pressure at Middlesbrough is it starting to show that his Leeds and Swansea success was largely due to Pep Clotet?
Middlesbrough manager Garry Monk looks on during the Sky Bet Championship match against Aston Villa.
Garry Monk is starting feel the pressure as Middlesbrough manager following a 2-1 defeat at Bristol City in their last Championship outing.
The result leaves Boro in ninth position and 18 points off leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers after 20 matches, despite pre-season expectations of automatic promotion.
Daniel Ayala of Middlesbrough looks dejected after Callum Wilson scored the second Bournemouth goal during the Carabao Cup Fourth Round match.
The Teesside club hired Monk after his departure from Leeds United following a change of ownership at Elland Road and the 38-year-old arrived with a good reputation in the second tier of English football.
The former Swansea City boss had just guided Leeds to seventh place and just outside the playoffs in 2016/17, despite off-field problems at the club making his job extremely difficult.
Yet now with a huge transfer budget and a patient chairman in Steve Gibson, Monk is failing to deliver the results the Riverside crowd expect and the fans are beginning to turn.
Such a contrast in form suggests that the Whites’ success last term was down to a lot more than just the ex-defender and in fact could have been equally to do with his assistant, Pep Clotet.
Oxford United manager Pep Clotet looks on prior to the Sky Bet League One match against Milton Keynes Dons.
Clotet also worked alongside Monk at Swansea when the Welsh side achieved an all-time Premier League high finish of ninth and then made the move to Yorkshire too.
However, rather than following him again last summer, the Spaniard instead took the step up into management himself and took charge of Sky Bet League One outfit Oxford United – who are currently tenth.
Without Clotet’s influence for the first time in his managerial career, Monk is currently failing to live up to his reputation.
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