Are terms like enforcer and wanting a Billy Bremner type person in your team 'old school' thoughts. Has the game moved on to a less physical style in general? Only asking.
I think chico can do a better job than Kemy, there is also Bartely who could maybe play there if we wanted to keep ash and chico together. Bartley is young enough to adapt to that position but the kind of enforcer you talk about doesnt exist anymore. Who is the enforcer in the Man utd team ? Who is the enforcer in the Chelsea team ? Liverpool ? Man city ? Spurs ? They have better all round players than us ..but they cost them alot of money too!! they have players that can get a foot in,pass and have skill and pace. They dont have "a dog in midfield" like we used to call them, football has moved on from that. Somebody asked about football being a non contact sport, well it is fast approaching that im afraid to say! all the best teams do not have "an enforcer" they just have well rounded players that can do a bit of everything. It could be that we have a soft midfield,it is frustrating to watch sometimes but this isnt really a laudrup problem its a swansea football phylosophy problem,we have been this way for years, Bodde was the last man we had who had everything but boy didnt he spend alot of time suspended after being sent off...you cant enforce **** all sitting in the stands for a third of the season ! We will never be the complete team, there will always be an area to improve on, a few months back it was the defence!! now its our much vaunted midfield! next week it will be something else, at times we just need to step back and realise we cant win them all and especially against the likes of Arsenal all the time! People talk about Jack Wiltshire, well the guy is a top top talent . He is the next big thing irrelevent of all the hype he is a good player, but if my memory serves me well he hasnt had his own way against us before yesterdays game(could be wrong) I beleive our players are doing well overall and we must expect a few iffy performances..remember Blackburn away last season? **** happens ,we will win more than we lose
Disagree! Of course there are enforcers in the game today, they just don't call them that. The game is now more skilful at the top level, so these guys also have to be able to play. Off the top of my head because I can't be bothered to look it up, Spurs have Scott Parker and Huddlestone; Chelsea have Mikel, Ramirez. Luiz (even Lampard has a dig) and before them there was Essien and others. Man City have Ya Ya and United have Fletcher, Scholes and Valencia whilst Liverpool have Gerrard and Lucas. Arsenal have Wilshere, Diaby etc. When they were really successful they had players such as Viera and Petite etc. Of course these players don't rush around the field kicking people but think of their drive, their determination, their will to win the ball, their competitiveness. These are the attributes I'm talking about. Now, excluding defenders, name me one Swansea player who offers that. Leon tries, the rest just go through the motions. Like it or lump it, we have a soft underbelly and it will cost us games so long as it exists. When we get a combative midfielder(s), I can then see us start to make real progress in this league. Until then I believe we will hold our own but no more than that.
the fact is Arsenal were poor and there for the taking and they still blitzed us and made our players look foolish and made the manager look foolish after his comments about wanting a good cup runs, pathetic display from the top to the bottom in a game we could easily have won......Im glad i never paid any money to watch that crap.....of course you will hear excuse after excuse coming from laudrup and the players but the reality is there is no excuses to be seen playing no better than lower league stuff.....If you want to aspire to be classed as a good club trying to win things then im sorry you dont play or select a team like that.....Is the tide beginning to turn that we have reached our limit and cannot go any further...the next few weeks will tell....
So what you suggest we do then Dai ? Play the same 11 players for the 8 games in about 3 weeks we've played ? And as we got more games to come thick and fast we must use all our squad . I have mentioned previously that the cup games are irrelevant, even though we could be in wembley next month. The league is what's important we need points more than a cup it's that simple.
1. But we made them look ordinary in the main game between us this season, the league! 2. ML offered no excuses, he admitted that the better team won 3. We will win the League Cup if we get the right result next week 4. We are at a much higher level now under ML, had Rodgers stayed it would have been a much difficult season for us, especially without the quality Rodgers would not have attracted.
Comparing Apples with Oranges here i think. Ramires £17m Obi mikel £16m Lampard £12m Luiz £22m Last time i checked all those players were far away above our budget, you are paying for their drive,their determination their will to win the ball,their competitivnes!! thats what makes them top players and the rest average Ivor !! And despite all that last time we played Chelsea we won !! in fact despite all that they have beaten us once in 4 games !! I agree we are a bit soft in the middle but you cant compare us with the above players.. ya ya toure is on 200k a week and is a beast of a player but Man city havent totally out played us in the prem league apart from the first game ! Liverpool have the mighty Gerrard and Lucas..well they havent beaten us in 4 attempts !! Its easy to talk about "our soft under belly" but really, how soft can it be when we give as good as we get against teams spending 100's of millions of pounds on players ...who still cant beat us on a regular basis ?? You have some valid points about our midfield, but we must temper this with reality..the reality is we should be losing more than we win at this level but we are not so all things considered we cant be half as bad in midfield as we sometimes think !
we were made to look fools..FACT..Win the league cup like that display. We wont beat chelsea like that and we have a 2 goal start, Bloody hell bradford would beat us.....
Yes back in the early 90's before the prem money came into football. Actually valley you have reinforced my point here " Roy keane signed for Manchester United for a British record £3,75m transfer fee"
Hence why I used Keane as my example. Also I think Wenger paid peanuts for Vieira if my memory serves my correctly.
Really. ? Can't remember us looking foolish at all, I think you're slipping back to the negative here dai, and I have every confidence in the swans you should try it sometime .
I think wenger did pay peanuts for Viera, like he did for van persie,petit,anelka etc. Point is that the examples Ivor gave pretty much all cost or would cost alot of money and are all players playing for top clubs on massive wages. There is no doubt the odd jewel can be found cheap (Michu) but that may take time and it may not be deemed such an urgent task when all things considered we are 9th in the league, i think Canas may well offer something nearer to what Ivor thinks we need but i dont see him here until the summer. To get players that can do it all normally costs alot , we can find a bargin and polish him up but overall considering we have such a soft underbelly(which is a valid point in fairness) we seem to be doing pretty well at the moment i think, 9th is not to be sniffed at
We are doing a fantastic job Norway, I couldn't agree more! If we can strengthen the side a little in the summer or the next two weeks then who knows how high up we can finish
Agree ,nobody likes to see us get beaten and the manor of the loss wasnt great but we must keep an even keel, i get more frustrated losing/drawing games to teams i consider beatable like Norwich,Villa,Reading etc. Those teams are more equal to us than the likes of Arsenal!!
Norway, I did stress that I was looking at their mental attributes rather than their playing ability. I mentioned those particular players in response to you saying that the top clubs didn't have "enforcers". They obviously do but I fully accept your point that we cannot afford to buy the type of players who have it all ie. ability AND attitude. It's a point I actually made in a different post. The league is full of players of limited (compared to Ya Ya etc) playing ability who make up for it by their mental approach to the game. These players are fit, put in the tackles, let the other team know they are around and PHYSICALLY compete. This is what I'm after from our lot and what we have not been getting in a number of games. I used to coach passive situations in training and that's what I am seeing on a regular basis from our midfielders. I'm sure you know what "passive" situations are. Basically they are routines where little or no contact is allowed eg a goalkeeper getting practise at taking crosses where he might be challenged but only in a token fashion. What I want to see from our lads is a lot more devil in the tussle for the ball. Lately, I have come to expect that we will lose out in most of these because we have been. That cannot be right. The second ball is vital in football and, all too often, we have been second best in competing for it. And you don't have to be a £20 million player to come out on top in those particular situations. Basically, what I'm looking for is what we all have a right to expect from our team; some fight, commitment and determination to win our share of the ball. We have not been doing that. From midfield up we have been sitting back, defending deep and letting our defenders deal with the consequences. It is to their credit that for the most part they have been. It is no coincidence that Chico and Ash have been getting rave reviews recently. They've been earning them because of the amount of work they have been forced to do, because the rest of the team have not been getting stuck in further up the field. As I said, you don't have to be a £20 million to put your foot in. Overall, of course we have done well but I see signs that we are falling off our game. The fact that we are 9th doesn't mean that we should be sitting back patting ourselves on the back that all is well. To maintain that position, or even improve on it, we need to be addressing our midfield problem because we do have one. If we sort it out, we can go on to even better things.
