I think its been a horses for course month for the Swans and we will see the return of the passing game once the congestion has gone, my take on why we have played this way is as follows. Our way of playing has changed lately but i do beleive Laudrup has a plan on this. If he can get teams thinking about which swansea city will turn up then that will only be good for us, to do that we need to develop another way of playing,i think its safe to say that we have done that. Before people go overboard about this defensive game plan ask yourself one thing. Why didnt we play that way against Man utd,Chelsea(early season)Arsenal and Liverpool ?? If Laudrup wanted us to play a certain way against the better sides this tactic would have surfaced much earlier..it hasnt. The defensive way of playing through late december and january is all about giving our A system a rest and using the squad of players we have IMO. Laudrup knew everyone would be needed so its maybe better to think of this last month as a circling of the swans wagons! a way of playing to get us through the tough fixture list. We must also remember that with less time to prepare for each game sticking to a certain system and being hard to beat is probably the best way around it. there is less time to get ideas across to players when you only have 2 days to prepare so having a system to play for 5/6 games is a smart move. We could have carried on our passing style but with tired legs/minds and constant squad changes it would have been alot more difficult to secure points and wins imo. Laudrup has been very clever i think . 1. It has given the oppostion plenty to think about when we roll into town as they dont know what they will face. 2. It has made it easier to use the full squad over the busy Xmas period by sticking to a defensive/safer system . 3. He has less time preparing and analising opposition for the glut of games so keeping the same way of playing is a huge benifit to him and players. 4. He has ensured a better chance of securing points with a tired team by playing a less open game,which proved to be correct. If rodgers was manager we would have rolled into alot of these games,had 60% posession and lost our fair share! we can all remember how frustrating things were for us last season and remember it took us until January 1st to win away from home in the league !! Ijust see these recent games as another forward step in our development,we will see the real Swans when the games start to thin out again but we have developed a valuable tool to help us when plan A dont work... its a plan B,C,D etc just like Laudrup said we should have back in the summer
Don't disagree. "The defensive way of playing through late december and january is all about giving our A system a rest and using the squad of players we have IMO." This is particularly true, I think. Our play recently has been depressingly Sousa-esque - but it's worked by and large. Time for a change of tactics and personnel on Saturday when we really have to batter a team that isn't great away from home.
I said this at the beginning of the Christmas period where almost all were criticising the way we were playing. I in fact that we were playing like a Sousa team, and the way we played under him was effective if boring. Now we still got 4 league games and a cup game to play in short order so we will see more of the same IMO
Maybe it will be more of the same and agree we have been more italian than spanish in recent weeks !! Im not adverse to winning ugly and prefer it to losing stylishly , the manner of the games hasnt been what we have been used to and as rightly pointed out it is very Sousa like in some of its aspects. I think its important to remember how difficult it is to compete at this level week in week out, keeping things fresh and using the full squad should hopefully pay its way in the latter months. I very often think about Blackpool when i think of our premier league progress and even though its not pretty to watch lately i much prefer us developing different systems of play and keeping other teams honest is very important,especially second half of the season!! Blackpool played the same way,had a few injuries and fell like a stone because they had no other way of playing,using inferior squad players to try and play the same system doesnt always work,you sometimes need to play to your squad strengths and not to the tactical system. Brenden rodgers was one lucky ****er last year IMO. He had no real injury problems so never needed to use the full squad like we have, our performances second half of last season were very patchy and a few of us mentioned that we had maybe been found out a little bit. I dont see the same thing happening with Laudrup(at least i hope not anyway) i think we have a better more balanced team an di think it is essential NOT to play Everton/Norwich the same ****ing way every year!.. Laudrup done a number on moyes so it shows me he is very adaptable, we need to be this way with our squad as we cant always replace like for like on the field. If we play the same in the next few games so be it but i think it really is all about the longer term stratergy with Laudrup
I'm all for adapting different systems to cope with different situations. The problem is that this defensive system we are playing - it's not a complete system. Surely ball retention and the odd attack should be part of the same system. All we seem to be doing is throwing bodies in front of everything, and when given the chance to move forward we just lose it. If that is the plan then we are failing at it. ie playing poorly.
True but we have had 5 games in the last 2 weeks and got another 4 in the next, so we must rotate the team for better or worse
Oh yes i totally agree Jager. As i said earlier its difficult times with alot of games and we have done well because we have used the squad wisely, we will play better in the coming weeks thats for sure
I don't think we have played well and been consistent enough in the last couple of months. I can see the tide turning slowly but surely...and after last nights pathetic effort and Danny wanting a move then watch this space. we have reached our limit. I don't think we will get much higher and more likely to drop more towards the bottom half of the premiership.....we should be safe this season at least...
If 9th is the highest we get then we drop then surely that is only to be expected ?? what do people expect from the Swans ? top 4 or european action ?? we need to get a grip on things i feel, a consistant run tends to blind us fans into thinking we are better than we actually are, for me nothing has changed i would take 17th now thank you!! its about building slowly and maintaing our status in the prem league. We are ahead of where we were last year by some distance so i cant quite understand the flapping after a rampant Arsenal beat us 1-0 at their home in a cup game..seems all a bit over the top . The Swans will get back to playing their game in the course of time, we just need a simpler way of playing while we rotate the squad , it makes perfect sense to me
Not consistent enough in the last couple of months ? Dai we've lost once in the league since the beginning of November, and that was away at spurs, in October we lost away from home to man city. And you are saying that is not good enough despite us being 9th in the league. Can I ask where do you want us to be ?
I just hope that in the mist of this defensive approach that the players don't "forget" how to play tiki taka football. As I wrote in the match thread, I was really hoping that Swansea would have a go at it, at least just to motivate the players for the upcoming matches as throwing bodies in front of the ball and watch the other team play can't be fun. If Swansea's defense could keep the ball away from the goal area I would be pleased with this approach but it just seems that it's the lack of strong finishing from the opposing teams that has kept Swansea in the last couple of games. The games could easily have went in a very grim direction. To be fair though, you can't play at 100% when you rotate this often and I recognize that.
I think the shift has been out of necessity. The way we play is incredibly hard work on a normal day. To play in that style over a period of weeks with multiple games per week is not physically possible. We needed to develop another style for those moments when we are unable to play our Plan A, out of fatigue, or injury, or both, or perhaps when the our team is just too strong on the night and they have our number, and we need a strategic or tactical shift. I think we have accomplished that. To only lose one game over this span and that by 1-0 to a club like Arsenal away is a job pretty well done. It hasn't always been pretty and sometimes frustrating, and idealists will probably grumble on some points with good cause. In the process some players have covered themselves with glory - Chico is the stellar example. Others have done their level best to play themselves out of contention for a place in the team - Dyer comes to mind. Others have shown areas where their individual skills, stamina, mental toughness need attention - but is this indicative of the player being max'd out and suffering under fatigue or not utilizing 100% of what they have - ML no doubt has a beat on that. Time will tell. "Normal service shall be resumed ..."
lets see if he can do better than Brendan...I hope so but i have my doubts, we are not as good as we were and there are to many changes. we have been playing to many long balls that the opposition are intercepting very easily and high balls are a joke with our mainly small team.....we need to get back to what we do best and leave these long and high balls to other teams....also cut out the back passes to vorm as we were very lucky on a couple of occasions against arsenal that the ball was not intercepted ..
If we had played our normal game over the last 4 or 5 games we would have been lost them all, picked up injuries and probably got plenty of bookings along the way. Laudrup is looking at the whole of January and seeing how we get maximum points/cup progress without knackering (for want of a better word) our squad for the rest of the season. As mentioned above, once we are through what is probably the toughest month in the Clubs history, we will revert to our normal attacking play. Patience is a virtue and although some of the football is not pleasant on the eye, we have got far more out of the whole of last month than many expected
