Swansea City’s two-man managerial shortlist revealed as frontrunner to replace Luke Williams emerges

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EFL Analysis can exclusively reveal that Swansea City already have two names on their radar when it comes to replacing Luke Williams, who was relieved of his duties on Monday night.

Swansea City have been in poor form for a while now, which makes the dismissal of Luke Williams far from surprising.

The Welsh outfit have won just one Championship match in 2025 — a narrow victory over Bristol City earlier this month — while heavy defeats at the hands of Norwich City, Portsmouth, and fierce rivals Cardiff City have left the Swans wallowing in the bottom half of the table.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
15	PrestonPreston	32	9	14	9	34	38	-4	41
16	Oxford UnitedOxford United	33	9	11	13	34	47	-13	38
17	SwanseaSwansea	33	10	7	16	34	46	-12	37
18	PortsmouthPortsmouth	33	9	9	15	41	55	-14	36
19	Stoke CityStoke City	32	8	11	13	31	40	-9	35

It was widely expected that Williams would face the axe sooner rather than later, and the 44-year-old was removed from his role on Monday evening.

But, it seems Swansea are not wasting any time in finding his replacement, as EFL Analysis understands two names have been mooted for the vacancy already.

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Swansea City have two names on managerial shortlist

EFL Analysis expert Graeme Bailey has offered exclusive information on the situation at Swansea, and outlined what he has been told about the figures in line for the job.

It seems the first name on the Swansea shortlist is former Oxford United head coach, Des Buckingham, who departed the club back in December.

On Buckingham, Bailey said: “The one name being mentioned to me at this point is Des Buckingham – I know they like analytics and even during his struggles at Oxford, he ranked very high when looking at it analytically.”

While Buckingham appears to be the frontrunner at this stage, we understand that Javi Pereira is also in the mix.

The Spaniard was previously in charge at Levante and also held the position of technical director at Fulham and Watford. Pereira left the latter earlier this season.

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Was sacking Luke Williams the right call?

It’s funny how football works, isn’t it? At the start of this year, Luke Williams was suggested as a candidate for the West Brom job before Tony Mowbray stepped in, and now he’s out of work.

He even hinted he would be interested in taking that job, before issuing an apology for an apparent lack of commitment to Swansea.

In the first half of the season, he had the Swans playing some decent football, appeared to be shrewd with his tactics, and had the backing of the fans. But, that changed very quickly, and it’s interesting that things really started to hit a downward spiral after the West Brom speculation.

You simply cannot excuse the run of results Williams has put together since the turn of the year, especially when you look at that derby defeat to Cardiff, which really hurt the fans.

It’s a slippery slope when you start losing games in the Championship, and midtable teams can soon find themselves embroiled in a relegation dogfight without even realising it. Swansea have acted decisively and hopefully the next man to step into the job can get them moving again.

Whether Buckingham or Pereira are for the job remains to be seen. The former registered just four wins out of 20 Championship matches at Oxford, which will hardly be enough to inspire Swans fans.

Meanwhile, the lack of genuine experience as a head coach will be a little worrying when it comes to Javi Pereira’s credentials, who has largely operated in the shadows of a directorial or assistant role. Indeed, most of his managerial tenure has come in China, and there will be doubts as to whether that can translate into the second tier of English football effectively.