Building suspicion in Sweden over Jon Dahl Tomasson and Middlesbrough

Jon Dahl Tomasson is the subject of suspicion in the Swedish media today after he was asked about the Middlesbrough vacancy and did everything he could to avoid ruling himself out.

Indeed, the manager explained that whilst he’s happy, there can be no guarantees, and despite an increasingly shocked group of journalists pressing repeatedly, he wasn’t prepared to fully commit himself to Sweden and turn his back on the Championship opportunity.

That all happened on Thursday evening, and since then there’s been multiple Swedish reports covering the situation, with journalists understandably still a little shocked about what they witnessed. Jon Dahl Tomasson wasn’t even prepared to say he’d stay until after the World Cup qualifiers.

If it’s not entirely Middlesbrough related, there may be a clue provided by Expressen, a Swedish newspaper. They have a column which explains Jon Dahl Tomasson was given a relatively short contract when he took over. It only lasts until after the World Cup qualifiers, and then if the team are successful and make it to the tournament, that is included as well.

Subsequently, his attachment isn’t as long term as some. Additionally, Expressen point out the manager is Danish, lives in the Netherlands and won’t have the same patriotic approach to the position as others have in the past.

Fotboll Skanalen also look at the situation, and have an article headlined: ‘JDT could have easily killed all the speculation’

That he didn’t is very much seen as a purposeful move.

Journalist Ooaf Lundh writes: ‘It is also clear that you can guarantee something if you really want to. Jon Dahl Tomasson could of course have guaranteed that he would stay out until the end of his contract as long as the association did not say otherwise. Now the feeling was that he absolutely did not want to close the door to taking another job. Even though he talked about rumours and that he had been sold 20 times by a club as a player one summer without being sold.

‘Several of the journalists present tried to twist and turn the questions around JDT’s lack of guarantee. I also wanted to clarify that I had not misinterpreted his English. In the end, the atmosphere became quite bad and JDT became irritated that we spent so much time on this issue the day before the match. It was not only the heat and the cramped conference room that made the air feel saturated.’

Sweden face Hungary this evening, and it feels inevitable that after the match there’s going to be more awkward Middlesbrough questions.