All this technical stuff is way over my head!.................... Man we have some 'Football Managers' on here, I didn't realise I was in such esteem company...........
Not sure if its 100% though Valley, was hoping to get some input from any one who knows if fact or not.
So what you think Dragon? anything? any ideas at all ? do you agree with what's been written, yes, no? feel free to share Dragon, it may be interesting to read your opinions on our narrow play these days, maybe not
Ok, just for you stumpy! I'm not one for the 'Claustrophobic narrow game' as you rightly put it, we experienced this under Laudrop, and it was all to predictable for teams to defend against, and on top of that our players were getting in the way of each other too many times, my preference in the game has always been to have wide players with pace hugging the touchline and stretching teams and getting our wingers crossing and getting behind the back line, and it's clear that we can no longer do that with the issues we now have with our wingers that you focused on in your earlier post, and I see this as the reason why we are playing narrow at the minute. Dyer has not run at defenders since the beginning of the season when he started scoring well, and clearly it seems he has been carrying injuries that have restricted his game since, add to that Routledge's poor form this season, then we are left with just Monty to do our traditional wing play, which he does so well by the way. There is also the dilemma of Shelvey, with his potential to win games, so where do you play him if Siggy is on form? add that to the issues of our wingers, and you end up with what Monk is doing at the minute, being adaptable shows Monk is prepared to look at the options, but my view is that it starts to look a bit too much like the old traditional one dimension English game, which as a Swans supporter I was glad we had got rid of under Martinez and subsequent managers that followed. It's my view that our game is at it's best when we have top wingers out wide working with our 'master of ceremony' and attacking midfielder Gylfi, stretching defences and opening the channels for our striker to exploit. When we come in narrow it becomes much easier for teams to defend against, and too one dimensional, as apposed to being attacked on the wings and down the middle. I'm not dismissing our wingers cutting inside against certain opposition, but for me there is greater reward from our game by playing our wingers as they should be played..............
'we experienced this under Laudrop' - only played narrow when we were hammered with injuries 'There is also the dilemma of Shelvey, with his potential to win games' - every player has the 'potential' but Shelvey has only scored twice all season, or, if you like on par with Emnes and Cork & behind Routledge, Dyer, Ki, Siggy and Gomis. 'It's my view that our game is at it's best when we have top wingers out wide working with our 'master of ceremony' and attacking midfielder Gylfi,' Spot on but atm the gossip is Dyer is carrying a long term knee problem and Montero's hamstring is being nursed to avoid long term problems. That leaves Barrow and Routledge as out and out wingers. So maybe Monk is being forced to make the best job with what he has and will continue with the diamond formation. If so I wish he'd let on because I'm truly hacked off with the way we are playing. There's a satisfaction in gaining points but but games are fairly joyless, soulless and lack quality - like watching a Premier League version of Kenny Jackett's Swansea
From his early doors Laudrop had our wingers cutting inside, regarding Shelvey he is our only midfielder currently likely to score, Emnes is out for some time, Routledge is way off form, Dyer is injured, and Gomis well you go figure!........... PS: The bold bit I agree with!..........
But Laudrup also had Rangel and Davies attacking so if the wingers went narrow they full backs gave the width (not in every instance but more often than not) if the wingers went wide the full backs came inside. Attacking full backs are currently discouraged, according to Jazz.
Hell your hard work Bob, though you make a valid point on Rangel and Davies, Taylor covers his winger and does the overlap pretty well in my view, though Rangel's legs look on the way out, so lets hope his replacement moves up a notch once he's settled in............
For me, there must be a reason that we don't ask our full backs to attack anymore. Maybe it's because we were at a point where our team was struggling to stop the opposition conceding, was struggling to see games out, and scoring consolations rather than winners and equalisers. Monk made no secrets about this, he wanted our team to be better defensively. An unenviable task of redesigning a club's on field tactics. Yes, we've been battered by Liverpool and Chelsea this season, but that happens when you change a team's style. Yes, we struggled to see out games this season too, but I'd rather be in the winning position and learn how to defend it, than be in a situation where you're scrapping for desperate equalisers and scoring consolations - Bony scored a lot of consolation goals for us last season. It seems that Monk identified our full backs as an Achilles heel. It seems like he's asked the wingers to defend more, hold formation and not waste energy attacking wingers if all your going to do is swing it into the box with one striker to aim at (the exception of Monty, who can beat his man, get into the box and use a higher percentage cut back ball along the deck), and he's told the full backs that they're defenders who have to earn the right to attack, not attackers who have to get back when required. We've seen glimpses, but it seems that since the start of Feb we've clicked into shape, and it's damn hard to break down. It hasn't helped that Leon has been injury prone and ageing, as he was a true master at covering full backs when they pushed forward. Ki and Shelvey don't focus on covering attacking full backs, Carroll was better at it but was inexperienced and often wasn't there to cover when required. Cork does seem capable. If you're DMs don't cover and fill in behind your attacking full backs, you're asking for trouble. Monk has addressed it by encouraging the full backs to defend, not attack. Eliminating the problem at source. The result so far? Our fastest ever 40 points. It's not pretty, but it's worked. We generally get into the lead in matches, and we're at a point where we are finally starting to see out matches, something that we've always struggled to do. We don't score many, but the goals that we do score are now putting us in the lead, equalising, and winning matches, rather than being consolations. The reason is that, more often than not, even if we're struggling, we're not conceding many goals and have players who, when given a chance, can take it. Why score 3 at Anfield if we're going to let them score 4? Why score 2 at Goodison Park if we're going to let them score 3? Why score 2 against Man City, if we're going to let them score 3? Exciting as it may be, it all equated to 0 points. We had to find a way to stop other teams scoring against us. Now that we're learning how to defend properly and see out games, we do need to now start working on our attacking play. It has to be tweaks rather than reformation though - or else we'll be back where we were at the start of the season. It's not pretty, but I do like going into every game thinking that we have a system in place that can take points, rather than only targeting games against mid to lower-table opposition. To me, Monk has successfully looked at the squad, seen it's limitations due to injury, form and age, and has got us playing a style of football that suits the current squad given the mentioned limitations. It might not be what we're used to, but currently it seems to suit our squad pretty well and we're picking up points regularly. I spent my entire amateur 7-a-side football career pissing off teams that, while technically better, skill-kings and possession-hogs, couldn't beat us. They'd call us ****, a one-man team, route-one, long-ball, one-dimensional, lucky...but we lost 8 games in 2 years (that's 8 losses in 104 games) and won 4 titles, that's not luck...and I loved every single insult because it showed that they had no idea how to beat us. We beat Swansea Youth teams, and countless teams with Welsh Premier players. We even went to Reading and won a 9-man tournament at Reading's training dome which included Reading's regional league champions and cup champions - we beat them both - the league champs we beat 1-0 in the final and 1-0 in our group. My brother was our captain and took 18 months of refining our formation and drilling the tactics into us before our pretty ridiculous run of results. We even went unbeaten in one season and were the only side keeping clean sheets in the league - once keeping 4 clean sheets in 5 games - you just don't keep clean sheets up Play Football. So...my point is that 9 times out of 10, shape and organisation can beat style and possession (obviously with exception to the out-of-this-world teams) - we should know...none of us had even played football for a 'real' team up before we started up there. I know Barcelona have been heralded as the way to be in the last decade, but Real Madrid and Bayern Munich (pre-Pep) made a habit of deploying shape and organisation to extreme effect to beat them regularly, Munich even winning 7-0 over two legs. Mourinho took Inter Milan to Champions League glory through shape and organisation. Let's not be fooled that short passing, tika-taka, possession football is what exclusively takes you to the top. A good defensive unit will give any team the right to attack. You have to play to suit your players, and currently, our current crop are not capable of playing the Swansalona way (due to age, form and/or injury) - so Monk has done the right thing and shelved that concept for now. Narrower? Maybe. Defensive? Certainly. Necessary? Most definitely. Sorry for the essay. I should've posted that as a blog somewhere and linked to it...
I agree with most of what you wrote but, 'Why score 2 at Goodison Park if we're going to let them score 3? Why score 2 against Man City, if we're going to let them score 3?' really has me worried. I don't believe we tried to let either team score 3. Why not score 1 and sit back on the lead? Because it is boring! Because it takes away any point to the game beyond staying in the Premier League which raises the question why bother staying in the Premier League (or any league) if the only reason to be there is to stay there. We may as well 'phone up and say, We expect you win so we'll save everyone the hassle and stay at home.'
Think you missed the point there Bob, BK was saying it's only with a sound & solid shape & defence that you earn the right to attack and win trophies, etc. I feel he's right for what it's worth, but I also have maybe a bit more faith in the talent of the players we have...and hopefully over the course of the remaining games Monk can find a good balance.
Agree Norfolk, Bobs missed the point again!.............. Exellent post Bigkidderz, and I suspect as I'v said in my previous post, that we will get back to our passing and possession game once we have the players back, and or trained and drilled, we have had some turnover in players as well lately, which doesn't help, not having a fully fit Dyer and Britton is a big lose to our style in my view also..............
We were playing in a way that, although allowed us to score goals, also allowed the opposition to score goals. So, Monk has come back to source and rectified the fact that other teams were finding it easy to score against us and we were regularly chasing games. Of course, you don't 'try' to let the other team score more than you, but if your attacking play is affecting your defensive play and you are an attacking side, then effectively your biggest strength is your biggest weakness. You learn to defend first, and then you learn how to attack off that foundation without affecting your defensive shape too much. If you want exciting, Wigan had it in spades and Burnley have it too - one went down, the other could be going down. Staying in the Premier League and ensuring financial gains are what is primarily important, supporter excitement, while important, is secondary. Following your football team isn't just about excitement, it's about a sense of belonging and having something to be passionate about. The Division 3 title we won in 1999/2000 under John Hollins was the season that got me hooked on the Swans, I was 11/12 years old. We won about 13 games (?) 1-0 that year. We kept over 20 clean sheets. We were boring to watch for the purist neutrals, but as a football fan, the excitement of winning and being successful is all you should need. If you're being entertained while you're successful, then that's the cherry on top. "We may as well 'phone up and say, We expect you win so we'll save everyone the hassle and stay at home." - Come on! If you're 1-0 up and good enough to not let the other team score, then you're good enough to stay in the league. That's what Monk is working towards. We didn't phone up Saints and say "we expect you to win", we went there and stopped them scoring and won the game. Remember the famous chant, "1-0 to the Arsenal". Boring, boring Arsenal, eh? Being boring/defensive does not mean that you don't deserve to be in the Premier League. Losing games and not picking up points determine that. Just try to enjoy the success, even if the play isn't as 'exciting' as it has been. 20 years ago we had neither exciting play nor success. I'm personally getting to a point where I'm starting to enjoy seeing us frustrate other teams. However, we won't be able to shut every team out every week, this is the Premier League after all, but equally we weren't able to pass teams off the park every week when we played that style either. It's pretty clear so far that Monk's defensive style is as successful in the league as the other possession-based styles. So it'll be interesting to see how he develops us, and whether we will actually become a more potent attacking force under his stewardship.
