Things are shaping up nicely and we should be well prepared for next season. Training has gone well and has been more intense than its ever been said ash. Gomis has fitted in well and is looking good as the no1 striker for the new season. Fab has been impressive and him and tremmel are working hard together...
We will be fighting for survival all season , how bad the fight is depends on the extent of the exodus Monk will have to shape a team , something he didnt have to do last season. Could get ugly .
We are heading into this season with a series of challenges. I call them challenges because it is difficult to quantify them at this point as absolute problems and "we" (meaning the Club and individuals within the Club) may yet rise to the occasion and render them irrelevant or properly resolved. First: We have players returning from the World Cup - Vorm, Bony and perhaps JDG - who have not had a proper break following last season to rest and recover properly. This is their going to delay their readiness for this coming season and may make them more vulnerable to injury. What is their condition and availability going to be on the first game of the season. Second: We have a manager who is not licensed to be a Prem manager. I don't know of the length of the grace period for obtaining this license and the ramifications if it is not obtained. But, it is a challenge for Monk and the Club needs to have some contingency in case the license is not obtained. It is naturally presumed that Monk has the tools the obtain the license - I don't think this is necessarily a given, it is to be determined, meaning Monk as to do the work and pass the tests. And, does he have the time to focus on this while also serving as a club manager. Third: Internal strife - I don't know of a better label at this point. Looking in from the outside: a) there are players that should be on a tour and apparently are not - how are they preparing otherwise; b) there are players that have quality that are rumored to have been set aside; c) there are players that have quality that are rumored to be unhappy and are seeking to leave; d) there is one key player (Michu) that is apparently AWOL; e) it looks like we may have a manager that is too close to the players he is supposed to manage. I have used the word "rumors" because until resolutions are officially announced or events transpire that indicate that they are nonsense or valid we frankly don't know any better. Four: Player Turnover. With all of the rumors and potential turnover of personal, loss of quality and loss of cohesion, and a rookie unlicensed manager, it is difficult to see how the "Swansea Philosophy" (whatever the **** that really means) can be maintained and any sort of competitive cohesion and consistency can be achieved going into the season. Five: Preseason Training & Preparation. For better or worse, we are now following the Monk protocol, Williams approved, Britton endorsed. This is where Monk gets to walk the talk. I have come to realize that there is a huge difference between those full of opinion, so called "experts", that talk a good "game" and pass judgement on others .... and those that are able to actually play the "game". Those that can play don't have to do much talking, their results speak volumes. This is where we get to see whether Monk is full of **** or full of value. Monk is not going to be able to hide from this. HJ will either get to crow about his appointment of Monk and the replacement of Laudrup or have to eat crow with the internal recognition at least that it's not the smartest thing he's ever done. Time will tell ... it always does. Challenges .... we have created these largely by our own doing. We can resolve them or turn them into disasters just as easily, by our own doing. We won't know until we take the field at Old Trafford and see the product on the field, the quality on the bench, the performance and shape of the team and ..... the nature of the result. Some will say it will be too early to tell anything, but the fact is it will be a statement of our preparation, of the existence or lack thereof of internal problems, of whether we have met our challenges or been impacted by them. I'm not going to pay any attention to anything until that first match.
Next season imo will be the making or breaking of this Club , for all those reasons posted by Yankee Jack ,too much quality being dismissed either by the manager ( a big worry ) or by us ,to replace what we have is never easy and now the core of the squad look under threat from within it's self , a rookie manager who's just that in man management and this time last year was wondering how he'd get a a game let alone put out a team competing in the PL .
No problem on the Management side,Yankee. If Monk has to step aside, Jenkins can put his other hat on, and go cap in hand to Qatar,and get Michael Laudrup on loan.
Alan Tate is still assigned number 5 in the squad on the Swan's web site. I find this ridiculous unless he's there as a backup, to the backup, to the backup, to the backup, to the backup goalkeeper.
