Excellent read imo

What Some Football Pundits Fail to See

The standard of punditry on television is often poor. Sky’s coverage and the quality of analysts such as Gary Neville are in a different league to what terrestrial television provide. Take yesterday’s Match of the Day. Pundits used typical football clichés and failed to tell us anything revealing about the Swansea-Cardiff derby. Football games are won in many different ways, and rather than focusing on the complex tactics that influenced the game, too many analysts fall back on picking out a single player and simply show various clips of what he did to influence the game. In the case of the Swansea-Cardiff game yesterday, they picked out Pablo Hernandez, but failed to highlight any of the other tactical elements that were decisive in Swansea’s victory.

Garry Monk (the Swansea Manager) had identified Wilfred Zaha as a vital to Cardiff’s attack since he possesses the kind of skills that can hurt teams. Cardiff Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer played Zaha wide on the left. If Swansea were to contain this threat, Angel Rangel (Swansea’s right back) needed to have a very good game. Zaha has pace and is capable of beating his man through his dribbling skills. Rangel’s very effective man-marking did not give Zaha any space and in turn this lead to Zaha becoming frustrated with many of Cardiff’s attacks breaking down on the left hand side.

Cardiff were set up to breach Swansea’s defence through their speed and Solskjaer clearly intended Zaha and Craig Bellamy to run at Swansea’s defence and get behind them. Bellamy did manage to find some space, but his service was limited largely because Zaha had been neutralised by Rangel. With Zaha unable to provide effect service to Bellamy, he was substituted without having much influence on the game.

Garry Monk also clearly understood that in recent weeks Swansea’s main problem has been their lack of width. This meant that Swansea tended to play everything through the middle of the pitch, causing the club to struggle to break down opponents. In yesterday’s game, Nathan Dyer was a constant threat to Cardiff and very worthy of his goal.

Swansea went into the game with a clear game plan of playing with genuine wingers - players who pick up the ball in wide positions and attack the opposing full backs. This gives Swansea a shape that can hurt teams. Yesterday, Swansea were looking to spread the ball wide with pace, enabling the wingers to run at their full backs. Under Michael Laudrup this had not been happening and Swansea had shown little penetration or tactic variety.

Significantly, Leon Britton was placed back in the starting line-up. This will not surprise many Swansea fans as Garry Monk and Leon Britton were roommates for away games. But aside from this, Leon Britton makes such a difference to Swansea when he starts. Recently, he had fallen out of favour and only started five out of the last 31 Premier League games. Laudrup clearlydid not appreciate the control Leon Britton brings to a game.

Britton offers many different attributes to the team, principally his passing prowess and his ability to control the pace and shape of a game. As Swansea like to control a game by retaining possession, Britton’s attributes are vital to Swansea’s approach. Britton is always available for a pass and rarely gives the ball away. Yesterday, with Swansea’s greater width, he was looking at getting the full backs on the ball throughout the game. This enabled them to find their wingers, thus starting many of Swansea’s most promising attacks. Without Leon Britton in the starting line-up Swansea do not have the same control of the game.

It was clear Swansea were set up to play in a more adventurous manner, trying to get in behind the Cardiff defence and creating more chances. Under Laudrup, Swansea’s style had become too predictable, with all too much of Swansea’s play in front of their opponents. This was very easy to defend against as the defending team can see everything that is about to happen and opponents can keep their shape and discipline more easily. Yesterday, Swansea players were using through balls to get in behind Cardiff’s defence. Swansea first goal came through a Hernandez through ball which allowed Wayne Routledge to run in behind the Cardiff defence in a way which has been absent from Swansea’s play in recent weeks.

Garry Monk also alluded to Swansea needing to “be proactive rather than reactive.” This might have been a coded criticism of Laudrup’s approach and will be as welcome to Swansea fans as it will be unsettling to Swansea’s future opponents. Garry Monk understands the way Swansea have built up their success over the last 10 years. He wants to ensure Swansea look to control the game from the start through a clear game plan.

This game was not just won through the Pablo Hernandez substitution as suggested on Match of The Day. Garry Monk set out a clear game plan which the Swansea players executed. Swansea’s aim was to nullify the attacking threat of Wilfred Zaha. This was achieved through man-marking him out of the game and ensuring that he had no time on the ball. Swansea were looking to start attacks through Leon Britton, whose role was to be available to receive the ball in his own half and then spread the ball wide. The biggest difference from the recent Laudrup performances was the width with which Swansea played. The wingers were looking at attacking their full backs.

Overall Garry Monk has maintained the Swansea philosophy of playing the ball on the ground and retaining possession. Encouragingly, his team was set up as a Brendan Rodgers Swansea team would have been. As Gary Neville would have seen, this bodes well for the future of Swansea and Garry Monk.

 

Read this yesterday and makes my point on why i never rated ML as a manager for us...far too many bad decisions and far too many personality clashes to ever succeed at swansea...

 

Memory of a monk fish (no pun intended). Let me .... see last season's League Cup victory ... not a success! Darn it, and I really enjoyed that moment. Never realized it was such a failure, beating the likes of Liverpool (remember that one Dai) or Chelsea in their parks on the way to the final.

 

As for the article - thanks for posting - excellent read.

 

Yes i do remember when we played Rodgers way.. Its a shame ML never stuck to our philosophy instead of ruining it that he earned himself the sack....yes i do remember very well..

 

Can we not turn this thread Dai into a Laudrup bashing thread.

As for the article, a great read

 

thread bang on topic valley with my first post and my second post is in response to yankee, so tell him not me..

 

A good read, Boundy. Now find the Max Hicks blog on ESPN. Many good articles, superbly written ORIGINAL stuff without a hint of cut and paste. No bias either. He always tries to find a balance on both sides.

 

Ivor ,I do take time to read his blogs ,always informative and usually delivers a balanced view ,when you consider his bias not an easy thing to achieve .

 

Not only did the Swans beat Cardiff comprehensively on Saturday, but we witnessed a team that in many respects was unrecognisable from matches just weeks prior to Laudrup’s sacking. So what was different on Saturday afternoon?

•As expected Garry Monk used his wingers as wingers pushing them far up the field and much wider than previously the fans had seen this season. The width of the front line was reminiscent of tactics employed by Brendan Rodgers.

•Monk was changing his formation constantly during the game starting with a 4-3-3 moving to a 4-4-2 at one stage.

•The wingers, together with new signing Marvin Emnes, were swapping positions during the match which gave the Cardiff defence something to think about.

•That was the first time we had seen Pablo Hernandez deployed in a central midfield role. Yes, we have seen him play on the wing and cut inside, but never start in a more central position. What was noticeable was how much more he lifted his head up to check the play around him.

•The players are happy! When Routledge scored the first goal the joy could clearly be seen across his face. When Bony scored the third goal, every player (exc Vorm) congratulated him in the South West corner.

•The Spaniards are happy! Just before Canas came on as a substitute Garry Monk called him from warming up along the touchline. Canas run over to Monk and put his arm around the manager and tapped him on the back at the end of the conversation.

•Garry Monk was on his feet after the third minute of the game. On several occasions he called Routledge over to give him instructions and the winger would look at him, come over and acknowledge him. Many times I saw Laudrup trying to give instructions to players and they would just look away.

Being a South Wales derby match it is a big enough incentive to perform at your best, but Saturday’s performance was far and away much more energetic compared to the display we saw at the Cardiff City Stadium last year. - SwansFC