Making a quick impact

"The system is not important. It’s about the principles of the team – when you win the ball, when you lose the ball, when you attack. All are more important than the system"

Carlos Carvalhal has never avoided the most challenging of jobs. At Sporting Lisbon, Besiktas and Swansea City, he arrived when he needed to make an almost immediate, and significant, impact on his new team in a very short space of time.

Swansea, for example, were languishing in the relegation zone, having won just three of their opening 18 matches in the Premier League when Carvalhal was appointed in late 2017. He had just two days with his team before his first match as manager, against Watford, but they proved enough to inspire a 2-1 victory. Their battle against relegation was lost on the final day of that season, but Carvalhal was admired for the extent of his influence on a side that had previously appeared certainties for relegation. Speaking exclusively to The Coaches' Voice, the former Sheffield Wednesday manager describes his approach to working in those difficult circumstances and how he gets a group of players to buy into his ideas when time is so limited.