I'd say this season's squad is stronger than last year and I include Taylor in that statement purely because we have in numbers strength in depth with the Centre half availability ,Jazz who can play either full back position again with Tiendalli and Kingsley in the squad a fantastic replacement for Vorm in Fabisanski. Temmel was back to his best v Everton in the Cup and we know what he is capable of .Ki revitalised and showing why he was brought to the Club but discarded last season when we were down to the bare bones at times .Carroll is more than adequate and has played well with perhaps the exception of the Stoke game and although a loanee and in a different position compared to last seasons loan dross a huge improvement . Tactically Monk has shown he still has a lot to learn but this good start has endeared him for now to the majority and has given him breathing space to develop his own style and to learn without the added pressure of a manager looking for results.He does act positively and I thought he shown he's not afraid to make important decisions in dropping players i.e. Shelvey ,I think that the squad is more than capable of putting in performances such as the Valencia but we're not there yet due to a worrying ability of a collective slump in performance levels .
you tell me what manager gets his tactics right in every game and I'll show you the real father xmas.
Should we strengthen our back line? There's no doubting we are hard to score against but I did pick up on comment from the MotD highlights - before the game V QPR the two busiest goalkeepers in the Premier League were Rob Green and Łukasz Fabiański! Doesn't this suggest our back line could be improved? Or, are we simply letting teams attack us in the knowledge Fab is going to save what gets through?
Or is our defence limiting opposition teams to pop shots from range which is padding out Fabianski's stats without really threatening his goal? We saw how good a goalkeeper Rob Green is on Tuesday, but even the best goalkeepers will concede if you give the opposition enough "real chances", as Roberto loved to call them. The fact that we've only conceded 14 goals, compared to QPR's 27, tells me that our back 5 are limiting the opposition to much lower percentage chances which, even though may lead to a shot on target, is very unlikely to result in a goal. In other words, meat and drink to Fabianski.
Fair enough - that suggests Fab isn't necessarily up to much. Whereas I reckon he's world class, certainly his save v QPR was outstanding.
How does that suggest that Fab isn't up to much? The stats you quoted are saying that Fab is one of the busiest keepers in the league - but busy doing what? Making miraculous saves all game like Green had to do, or making routine 'saves' from distance which Fabianski might be doing (that part of the stat has to be proved of course). Fabianski is capable of world class saves, as you say, WHEN NECESSARY but not as routine.
Indeed his save against QPR was world class. In the same light, do we say that Courtois and Hart aren't up to much either? They can go a couple of weeks without having to make a save sometimes! Keepers at the lower end of the table always get more recognition because they are forced to make more fantastic saves than keepers in better teams. As aswan says, the test of a great keeper is to have very little to do and then to come up with the goods. Despite the fact that he's allegedly been one of the two busiest keepers, I can count with my fingers the amount of world class saves that I can remember from him this season. Doesn't mean he's not awesome, it just means we're doing our job as a unit. He commands his area from crosses better than any keeper I've personally seen at Swansea too (the first keeper I personally knew was Freestone, I'm a young'un). His distribution could be better, I rank De Vries as the best distributor of the ball (foot and hand), but Fab certainly isn't far behind.
I dont think we have had any really bad keepers for the last 20 years or more, but if i had to choose my favourite 4 then it has to be ..Fab, De Vries, Freestone and Vorm....
Disappointing result and performance today - but we remain 5 points better off than the corresponding fixtures last season. Man Utd 1-2 Swansea (+3) Swansea 1-0 Burnley (Same) * Swansea 3-0 West Brom (+3) Chelsea 4-2 Swansea (Same) Swansea 0-1 Southampton (Same) Sunderland 0-0 Swansea (-2) Swansea 2-2 Newcastle (-2) Stoke 2-1 Swansea (-1) Swansea 2-0 Leicester (Same)** Everton 0-0 Swansea (+1) Swansea 2 Arsenal 1 (+3) Man City 2 Swansea 1 (Same) Swansea 1 Crystal Palace 1 (Same) Swansea 2 QPR 0 (Same)*** West Ham 3 Swansea 1 (Same) *Replaced Fulham ** Replaced Norwich *** Replaced Cardiff
False impressions are easily given by comparing results against the same teams. Man U weren't sh** when we played them last season, Newcastle hadn't been on a shocking run of results, We weren't above Arsenal, Everton and Liverpool when we met last season. We are doing well at home and it's great to be in this position but our trend is downwards. Don't forget away from home we are are 17th in the league.
Bob, I agree with the principal thrust of your argument that false impressions can be given but, away from home, we are 1 point better than last season. Also, we haven't played Liverpool yet in the League this season.
It's on here somewhere upto the Palace game. Not doing it again as it is no more meaningful than straight game for game comparisons and it took ages checking team places at different times in the season. But I think we were 4 points worse off, in the context of places we'd have been 12 rather than 6th. We are better off than last season at this stage but IMO we were playing better football (We had played a lot more too and had to contend with more injuries but that's neither here nor there). My concern is we aren't learning form past poor performances and our away for is worrying.
As you say, it takes ages. So stop f*****g moaning. In fact you should change your name to Bob the Moan because that's all you do is moan. Moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, MOAN.
Hope you don't live in a glass house. I do moan and I praise where each is warranted, but I'll do you a deal. I'll never post on here again. Enjoy your board and keep licking ar**.
