League Cup final 2013: Swansea City go to Wembley planning for life without manager Michael Laudrup Over the past five seasons, Jenkins has seen four managers depart. Usually that is the symptom of a club in crisis: at Swansea, the chairman insisted, it is indicative of the health of the place. Managers come to west Wales to work in an environment in which they can flourish. When they do so, catching the eye of others in the process, it can only be good for Swansea. It also means that succession planning needs to be constantly active. "We've appointed managers first and foremost who are nice people to work with," Jenkins said. Then they have to agree to work within the principles of the club. When you look for managers to come into our club you do narrow the selection process down quite a lot because we know what we need. When Brendan [Rodgers] left in the summer we had to move pretty quickly, but we'd been aware of Michael and when we met, discussed his thoughts and we told him about the way we operate, it was a pretty easy decision for both of us. The principles to which Jenkins referred are twofold. First, there is not a lot of money around. Any manager expecting a hefty budget will be disappointed. This is a club which has eschewed the fashionable avenues of football finance. There is no debt there, no foreign investment. Second, the club demands that its managers adhere to a certain brand of pass-and-move football. The over-arcing philosophy was arrived at, Jenkins insisted, by necessity. "Even in League One, trying to get promoted, we were up against clubs prepared to pay out silly money for players," he said. We had to have something different. We had to do it our way and bring in people who suited that. It was, he said, a process started by Roberto Martínez. He brought over a number of cheaper Spanish players, whose skills and tactical nous helped form the club template. After Rodgers achieved promotion two seasons ago, Laudrup - well versed in the Spanish market after his time as manager at Real Mallorca - has taken the process on, most notably in the signing of Michu. Some of the players we brought to the club a lot of British clubs wouldn't take them. We weren't looking for physically strong athletes, we were looking for more gifted footballers. We were lucky that Michael was in La Liga watching them. Either way, the club's appearance at Wembley and position in the top half of the Premier League table is far removed from their state when Jenkins assumed control, when they redefined the term struggling. "I remember being scared to death," said Jenkins of his days struggling against extinction. The pressures were immense. Pressure doesn't exist in the Premier League compared to that. The club could go out of business, disappear. We didn't have a plan then, we were just looking round for cash to pay the electric bills. They have a plan now, at Swansea. And it appears to be working.