Garry Monk - 38 League games in

Saturday's game against Sunderland saw Garry Monk now being in charge of Swansea for the equivalent of a full season (38 games).  In that time he managed 52 points which compares favourably with Rodgers (47 points) and Laudrup (46).

When looking at Swansea's performance on a rolling basis, it's possible to get a feel for highs and lows over the last 3 and a half seasons:

Rodgers with 47 points in Swansea's first season was actually better than Laudrup's total even though Swansea ended up finishing a place higher in the league.

For me, the thing that stands out is the decline that preceded Laudrup's sacking with only 36 points from 38 games at the point he left, which is relegation form, you could explain it slightly by the complete switching off post the Capital One Cup win (strictly speaking things started to go sour the week before with the 5-0 defeat to Liverpool post a mid-season trip to Dubai).

Although the 3-0 win v. Cardiff in Monk's first game saw an immediate upturn in fortunes it wasn't an instant turnaround with then just 3 points in the subsequent 6 games, but to Monk's credit the close to last season and this season so far have been impressive.

38 games is obviously a long period over which to track performance, smaller time periods offer a more immediate level to evaluate even if they are more variable just by chance runs and relative fixture strength.

Looking at performance over a 19 game period gives the opportunity to compare Rodgers as well and the noticeable improvement in Swansea's showing in the 2nd half of 2011/12 was in no small part to the first coming of Gylfi.

Rodgers with 20 points in first half of season and 27 in second (Gylfi first played in game 21 v Arsenal, with game 20 being a win v Aston Villa so wasn't all down to Gylfi).

6 games is often used when people talk about the 'Form Guide', it may not offer the best insight into a team's behaviour but does help to show swings in highs and lows.

Monk with a couple of periods of 15 points from 6 games which is phenomenal (if unsustainable).  Laudrup with 1 points from 6 shortly before getting sacked.  Rodgers never getting less than 4 points from a 6 game period also quite impressive given it was Swansea's first season in the league

As I've said before, overall Laudrup did great things for us, even if it did turn sour in the last few months especially. It's also maybe a bit unfair to compare current squad performance where £5m players are the norm with Rodgers' squad but overall you could argue that there's been generally a period of gradual improvement every season for the last 7-8 years (even last season you could argue the knockout stages of the Europa and running Napoli so close was a feat to rival the Capital One cup win).

Swansea are now in a weird situation where they are a well managed stable club that could finish between 9th and 14th in the league for the forseeable future.  Even given Southampton's incredible season, chances are they'll still end up finishing 7th.

The amount of money required to have any realistic expectation of top 4 (or even top 6), is huge and would probably require a Leeds style 'buy now pay later' approach which main bring short term fun but a long term headache.

Comfortable mid-table may not be the most exiting thing in the world but it definitely beats the 'Interesting Times' going on elsewhere.