Still, we grafted out a win. Dealt well with corners and crosses. Ignoring their offside goal we won 0-2; not bad with a number of starters out.
Both teams put in a very good shift, was well impressed with the Fulham side, they will not be down the bottom end for long!.....
Despite the amazingly negative lashing from Ivor, I'm delighted tonight. Winning ugly is a positive attribute. I honestly cannot believe you can complain - no team plays well everytime, so why don't you give the lads a break? I dread to think what you'd have been like in some of our darker days!
I'm calling it as I saw it and that's how it was. They had 59% possession and 22 shots to our 10. But it's not the stats that worry me, it was the performance. I posted at half time that Ruiz could do us damage with the freedom he was getting. Was that rectified in the second half? Was it hell! Whoever was detailed to mark him (I couldn't work that one out) did one lousy job because he carried on regardless. I'm not one to put a gloss on crap and we were certainly that in the second half. We couldn't string any passes together, couldn't keep hold of the ball and it kept coming back. Quite simply they overran us, were stronger and our midfield couldn't cope. Fortunately, our defence was great and we held out, so full marks to them for that. As for Ki, he is fast becoming a liability. He has no pace, no strength, can't tackle, and his main attribute (passing) has been very sloppy of late and that is a kind description. As I commented before, a great fair weather player. I am over the moon with the three points but I do not let that distract me from the wider issues. This team needs three quality players to progress. At the moment we are brittle but getting away with it and, if I can see it, you can bet that Michael Laudrup does and he will be working to put things right. As for "darker days", campioni, I've seen more of those than most..... and I'm still here.
In response to Ivor, I would agree that Ki is a light weight, and is starting to disappoint, I would prefer Orlandi in that position than Ki at the moment, lets hope he improves second half of the season, but overall I thought we put in a good performance, and matched a very good display from Fulham, I would say that a draw would have been a better reflection of the game, what I'm trying to say Ivor, is, I think your being a little harsh considering the way the games are coming in thick and fast!................
We are progressing as a club and as squad. Fulham are no mugs & don't forget they've been playing in the PL for a lot longer than us , would we have come away with any points at all if this was last season? We're now in a position to slag off 5 million pound players (thats not my valuation)because we can ,that to me is progress and if we stay up we'll progress further with yet again better players brought in . Mr Laudrup stated he wanted a quality player x 2 for each position ,I'd say we're slowly getting there ,The player he brought in at the start were to replace players we no longer have and looking at what he's brought in I'd say he hasn't done too bad a job ,with the new arrivals due and think we can progress further this season and onwards . http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20866691, he summed it up better than I ever could
Jees guys, How many times last season did we play all the nice stuff but were not able to get anything out of it. Well now maybe just maybe we are learning and that the result is more important than the performance. Yes it wasnt the best performance neither was the one against reading. But out of our 3 xmas games we have not lost. We should be taking the positives out of this and not looking for negatives.
Absolutely right trunds, we haven't lost, 7 out of 9 points could well become 10 out of 12 points come tuesday, what a return and who would have predicted our postion come the turning point of the season at the beginning. Bonys right, who have thought that we could have the luxury to moan ( if we wanted to ) about performances safe, imo, that we will be safe at the end of the season. There I've said it! But I have to agree with Ivor over ki, he seems off the pace at the moment and his vision and passing are dreadfull. Ho hum onwards and UPWARDS!
Phil, the games are coming thick and fast for Fulham too. What also concerned me was that after 60 minutes the commentator said that the Swans were looking tired. SIXTY minutes, ffs!! As for KI versus Orlandi, it's a no brainer and I said as much many posts ago. We can but hope that the lad is just going through a bad period and will improve. Right now, he is pants. Cue a MOM display against Villa with a couple of goals. You guys know that I am as passionate about my team as anyone. I just point blank refuse to go down the Rodgers' route of bigging them up when I know different. I call it as I see it... good or bad. Isn't that the way to go? Identify problems and then deal with them to make us an even better team. Of course, Michael Laudrup does that in reality, we just comment on and debate the issues as we see them. That's the fun of a forum. We were second best to Fulham in everything but the scoreline (thank God!!). I look for reasons why. We weren't just bad in that second half, we were a shambles. They were quicker, stronger, showed more desire, found space wherever they wanted and brushed us off like flies. We could not keep the ball, could not win it and they were far more committed than we were. I was not impressed. Fair play to our defenders, they did us proud. Tremmel stepped up again and Monk was a rock. The good thing, as has been pointed out, is that we won ugly and, at this point in time, I am happy to concede that results are more important than performances. Looking at the season as a whole, we have been great. We are only four wins from guaranteed safety and hopefully only three after the Villa game. That is superb and exceeds my pre-season expectations by a distance. So, despite my misgivings about yesterday, I can only praise Michael and the lads. Fine tune some of our obvious faults and we could easily finish in the top eight and that is a heady prospect.
Agree with Ivor, however, I think from the 80 minute point forward or whenever Rangel and Tiendalli doubled up on the right with Ben coming on we strengthened up and came back into the game. Rangel was denied a good penalty shout. ML made some good tactical moves again. I quite like the idea of Rangel in front of Tiendalli on the right hand side (we did this against Arsenal) and wouldn't mind an experiment of putting Rangel in midfield alongside Britton or Augustien. Big T is a good wing back and puts in a good cross. The rest of the midfield line up gets shuffled to suite.
Ivoe has made some sterling points fair play to him. It pretty much what i think too, the win was incredible considering the amount of pressure we had to soak up from 50mins onwards, this is the big difference this season for me. There is no point in having 60% posession and losing games all the time, i would rather see the odd backs to the wall performance than us just keeping the ball in our own half and getting beat by a set piece. I always feel there is a goal in us these days and if we conceed its not as disasterous as it was under rodgers. Did you know we have won more games away from home than we have at the Liberty ?? That comes with a price of sacrificing the pretty stuff for the practical stuff and im all for it !! Ki will get better, as i told you guys before,he isnt actually a Laudrup signing, it was made by the club and the wheels were in motion before Laudrup came here, its why he wanted JDG and we ended up with maybe two players for the same position, it may well be the case that Ki is being used in a few different positions and they are deciding which is his best. This doesnt explain his sloppy passing or his lack of being tight on his man though. The player is 23yrs ols and will get alot better, we also forget that he has had no time off this year with the olympics and internationals etc and like Joe ASllen he is looking a bit jaded right now. Laudrups why of playing also changes from week to week and that takes certain players longer to adjust to things,there is sometimes so much movement from the wide and front players that it makes it really hard to play the instinctive quick pass because you are unsure where your players are moving!! all this kind of thing will settle down as the season goes on,remember that Laudrup said we will get better as we move into the second half of the season and i beleive we will. The win was fantastic the performance was not, there are alot of improvements to make, we are very close to becoming a solid top 10 team but we are creaking when we reach into our strength in depth, nothing wrong with that,but nothing wrong wanting to improve.
Well your going to have to get used to it Ivor, as the only player we have who knows how to keep the ball in the midfield is Britton, and he wasn't playing until coming on late as a sub, and with the only other player in Joe Allen now at Liverpool, this is what I've been expecting, seems Laudrup is not that bothered with the control we are used to at Swansea in the midfield, the days of midfield domination are gone with De Guzman and Ki now in the midfield, as neither of these players are good at keeping the ball. Agustien for me is the only strength we have along with Leon, our midfield strength has been watered down in favour of our forward attacking ethose! Norway makes aditional point too why we are not as strong in the middle of the park, which I agree with to, but they are not the main reason, it's the focus of the type of players that we are bringing in, and it's clear to me that, Laudrup has given priority to their attacking qualities first and formost, and keeping the ball second!..................
Well and good, Phil but a better team would have put five on us in the second half with that type of possession. We hardy did a thing right (except defend) and that cannot be right. I have no problems with a team being better than us because plenty are. What concerned me was our complete inability to get hold of the ball then keep it for a passage of play. As for "attacking qualities", you've got to have the ball to attack. We didn't so we couldn't. Anyway, it's three points more towards the cause and let's look forward to three more against Villa.
It begs the question Dragon, would you prefer pretty passing football and 60% posession resulting in a loss or a scrappy game with 40% posession and a win? Our football is still good, when you look at the passes made they are still in the same numbers its just that there are more gambles made in the final 3rd or more long passes to hit the front players. we are not controling the ball like we used to but we are picking up far more points..and what to points make ??
Brendan's game was all about control. People often criticised it as "possession for possession's sake".... It wasn't at all, it was possession to control. A lot of the time we had the ball but were in fact defending. Now we defend without the ball and when we have it we try to create or counter attack. It's why the defence looked shaky early on this season. We could have sunk but they have improved as a unit due to the necessity to swim. It took guts. We now look like we can score against anyone. We are only going to get possession stats of 60%+ when everything is going right and we are totally dominating the opposition...which will be rare in the Prem. We have more points and could be safe and booked our place in a cup final by the end of January. I am ecstatic
