I feel it Jacks, I understand our frustration and I agree, the team is not performing as well as we've become accustomed. I'd say we're playing at 80% our ability with 20% lost to this years achievements. As for us fans, maybe our over expectations are fueling our disappointment. Post cup and premier league safety we began to dream of kicking on maybe finishing 6th/7th or maybe amassing our best points tally in the top league ever. This hasn't happened, our recent performances have been poor and many points have been lost but we are where we are. We are currently on a very bad run yet, we are doomed to nothing but an exciting year in Europe and premiership football. We are NOT playing for our lives, we are NOT in fear of relegation as we were supposed to be. On the contrary, we are soaring in the toughest of leagues, we ARE 9th and WILL be playing premier league football next year. On top of this achievement we HAVE WON silverware and ARE in Europe next year. What is remarkable to me is that we have achieved all of this with a third of the season remaining. I'm not a doom and gloom merchant, as I see it, our team has achieved everything it set out to do this season and and more. Currently Swansea City Football Club shines brighter than it ever has. They shine into another premier league season, they shine into Europe, they shine into another year of excitement, pain and joy and I'm following the light because the dark side is full of fatalistic and unwarranted blame and recrimination and dai Go to the light My Jacks, go to the light
Meant to say that I'm back to the sand for a cuppla months so keep on shouting for the Mighty Swans. I'm a loud and proud Jack and every one on camp knows it. I get a lot of the Skandia and Europeans to follow us too and although 99% of the time I can't post we read 606 together to keep up with all things Jack so be nice to eachother, good luck with everything you do, much love.
As my English teacher wrote on my report after I got a big fat zero for a term mark - ' Ability is no substitute for effort" but what do we do with Pablo and JDG who have flashes of one and none of the other?
Agree with all of this - KJ and I are of like minds on always trying to look toward the next level. Take pride in what you've achieved but don't rest on your laurels or you'll nod off and get caught by the pack. Our performance against Chelsea was inept and shameful. The only positives I can take from it were Ki, Vorm and Chico. Ki showed well - after the article posted last week comparing Ki to Leon, I watched him closely and true to the stats quoted (sorry I'm too lazy to look up the author of that very good article) Ki barely put a foot wrong, and was the one person pushing forward later in the second half into the box to make something happen. Culturally Ki is a going to be an emotionally quiet individual, but don't let that apparent lack of enthusiasm blind you to what he actually accomplishes on the field. Vorm almost made a save on that penalty. Chico ... was well Chico - he is one tough bugger to beat even when all around him are dozing. Ivor made a comment on another thread about the physical demeanor and strength of the Chelsea stars - Oscar, Hazard, Mata - and indeed they banged bodies and won the contents much too often. Also have to comment on Luiz, isn't he one classy holding midfield player - love watching him in that role - wish he was playing for us.
Can't agree about Pablo, Lumber. He obviously has ability although he is in a hard place right now. But fair play to him, he keeps trying and tries to get involved. His bad play is getting noticed because of that. If he was hiding like JdG, he might escape the spotlight but he doesn't hide. Actually, I thought, along with many journos, that he was one of our better players against Chelsea on a day when none of them shone. JdG is frustrating and annoying the hell out of me. Is this guy playing for a contract or not? Of course he can play because we've all seen it but his shameless skiving when we need to dig in is affecting the rest of the team. He claimed to be a box to box player with a big engine when he first arrived but I've seen little evidence of that. If we had a genuine box to box player, we would be a half dozen points better off but he seems to think he is too precious a player to do any graft or dirty work. I now hope that Laudrup doesn't move for him in the summer. He's not what we need. We do need a player who can get in amongst the other lot, disrupt them and get up and down the pitch. Maybe Canas is that man but he appears to be more of a holding, defensive midfielder. I can't wait to see what our transfer dealings will be like but it is vital that we import some energy, urgency and bite into this team.
That's all very well and good, but the fact is that the season didn't finish at Wembley, perhaps you'd like to pass that message onto our squad!...........
Missed Sunday's game so can't comment Ivor - but the previous 5 or 6 games Pablo actually disrupted everything by passing to the opposition. Everyone has a go at KI about not putting a foot in - can't remember the last time I saw Pablo do it. JDG - I've said many times - don't waste our money but if he's cheap enough he could fill out the squad.
Fair play Laudrup has spoken the truth today in the EP.....He said that you can see now that we Over achieved in the first 2/3rds of the season.. After him saying that he has to realize that he has to take the lions share of the blame for changing things when they did not need to be changed, also again he plays Michu up front on his own where he rarely got to see the ball and anyone other than him can see that from past games....2pts from 18pts has seen us fade away drastically and if he had done his homework properly instead of his media work and play players in their best positions then we may have got another 8-10 points minimum....He said we must finish the season on a high but i would ask him How...We could have if he was on the ball and knew what he was doing......
I think Laudrup knows what he is doing Dai, it's just that his man management skills need firming up, he needs to drop players when they under perform, plus we really do need to get a serious CF, and a MF general, as we don't dominate games in the mid field any more, and it puts pressure on our back four!............
dragon 2pts out of a possible 18 suggests he is struggling to know what to do....We were beating and giving as good as we got in the first half of the season but once he started to mess around with a winning formula what we had we have gone to pot and look like a team that will struggle next season....
I think it's important to finish strongly so we don't spend the summer wondering if the start of next season will just be a continuation of the bad end to this season.
He's been playing the best he's got and not getting the results, largely because of focus and effort not capability. If he drops players who would he replace them with. Monk for Ash - is that a real option, we could try the invisible man but Bartley is either injured or really in the dog house. The three amigos - Routs/Dyer/Pablo - haven't been able to string two decent passes together between them in weeks - who are the alternatives - Lamah and that's it since Gwion Edwards is up in St Johnston. Schectar isn't the option he was supposed to be. And we can't say we have missed Graham because except of a few games before he left, Graham was either not producing or suffering from his mysterious ailment. Laudrup saw something against Liverpool in that drubbing that he didn't like - he said so. From that I believe we can expect to see changes during the summer. He will have a whole summer to produce something better unlike last summer where he started late and had three key players away at the Olympics etc. Under the circumstances we had up to the final a terrific season all things considered. Since then, we've been very poor and Laudrup knows it. It seems that too many players have thought the job was done after the final. HJ also needs to revisit the bonus scheme these guys are on because clearly it's not providing the right motivation.
Jacksparrow: I said as much at the start of the thread. I get the feeling the players respect Laudrup but they don't fear him. Just an opinion.
I'm sure Chelsea players don't "fear" Benitez, however they got themselves fired up for the game. You don't need to be feared to be a good a manager. It's just a case of the players switching to a more professional mindset. Not a problem as they're still (relatively) new to the league and Laudrup's management style. They will get better over time, and I'm sure they're learning a lot about themselves over the course of this blip in form.
Well, Aswan, I think I'd prefer an in form Pratley to the moody, sulking, inconsistent de Guzman and push Ki forward as an AM. I have become increasingly disillusioned with the Dutchman. He has ability but he just doesn't want to know when things get tough. I certainly wouldn't want to be in the trenches with him. I'm not saying that Prats is the answer even though he's been in decent form for Bolton. What I am saying is that we need his TYPE of player. Right now, teams are pouring through our midfield because JdG is only a token presence there. This puts extra pressure on the likes of Ki and Leon and, inevitably, mistakes happen and gaps appear. Joe Allen, in a different way to Prats, was also a far better player for us - not a great tackler but always busy, always a nuisance and always in the game. JdG can be totally anonymous and we are not a good enough team to carry this sort of player when he's just not interested and disappears from the action for large chunks of the game. I asked before and I ask again, if he's so good, why does his present team want shot of him? He wasn't featuring for their first team. Why? We all know that we need a quality striker to turn the many chances we are creating into goals. Michu shouldn't be expected to do it all on his own. As our sole scoring threat, he's being heavily marked and teams concentrate on cutting the supply to him. But we also need some midfield grunt to go with it and, currently, we do not possess one player who can supply it.
