Best known as the serial adulterer who obtained a super-injunction over one of his affairs, then tried to sue Twitter users for inevitably breaking it, and as the footballer who refereed Manchester United matches for more than two decades, Ryan Giggs continues to believe that the world – and especially the media – bends to his every whim.
An unscrupulous cheat on and off the pitch – questions surely remain over the voting process behind his BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, gifted in 2009 on the back of some peripheral performances – now Giggs seems set on continuing his ways as he attempts to manoeuvre a position in football management.
For despite saving Swansea from relegation last season, leading them from 18th to 12th after taking over in late January, following an underwhelming start to the new campaign Swans head coach Francesco Guidolin is facing the scorn of the British press, with Welshman Giggs apparently keen on taking over.
Reports published late in the week stressing Giggs’s interest in the role, some alleging a stalled meeting with Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins, were clearly planted by Giggs and his advisers as a way of talking up his credentials. Giggs served as Louis van Gaal’s assistant at Manchester United, but appears temperamentally unsuited for a successful managerial career.
As a relatively dignified and softly-spoken Italian coach, who seems to show if anything too much respect towards a group of unruly and uninspiring players, Guidolin is an easy target for Giggs and for the British press, who are always eager to hound a foreigner out of a job.
Yet Swansea remain outside of the relegation zone, and if they find themselves still in that position come the end of the season, it will register as a success for one of the few Premier League sides who failed to strengthen over the summer transfer window, selling their captain Ashley Williams and talented attacker André Ayew as they emerged with a £9.6 million net profit. Even on current form Guidolin should be given time, regardless of his undoubted achievement last season. But if he does go and the Swansea post becomes available, let’s hope that Giggs doesn’t get his grubby hands on it.
