You can only go off what you see on the night - and, indeed, that performance - along with the last five performances - was woeful and pedestrian. I don't know what we work on on the training ground, but it can't be passing the ball, because we consistently underhit simple passes and gave the ball away cheaply time and time again. Yes, Stoke were sitting deep pretty much all game, but when you give away a cheap penalty (all stemming for Cork's inability to judge the high ball and then inability to execute a simple header) then you deserve to be punished and deserve to have to break down a brick wall. We didn't have the tools, although Gylfi and Ki made a huge difference when they came on.
I'm going to single out all the players who I feel are lacking at the moment:
- Taylor - I'm sorry, it's time for a seat on the bench. He has no decent attacking bone in his body. It's not good enough to be a left back and not have the ability to attack. Think of all the good full backs of recent times - Ashley Cole, Jon Arne Riise, Glen Johnson, Kyle Walker - they all know how to bloody attack. They can all swing a ball into the box. They can all take a decent pop shot. They can all beat a man when required. Taylor passes 80% of his passes to Ashley Williams - it's just not good enough. Tabanou was heralded when we bought him, and regardless of Taylor's performances for Wales (where in all honesty he doesn't have to get forward because we just defend in numbers and rely on Bale and Ramsey on the counter to make a goal), he needs to sit on the bench and let a player who can shoot, pass, dribble, cross and defend take over. It may take 5 or so games to get Franck firing, but we did allow Taylor almost a season of poor performances after his injury. Franck deserves his chance.
- Fernandez - A fantastic defender, but one of the worst passers of the ball to ever put on a Swansea shirt. Ever since he joined Swansea he has looked in his element reading the game and putting in last ditch tackles, but then is unable to correctly weight and direct a 10 yard pass. Jordi Amat must be given the starting berth in my opinion, but I wouldn't mind if Bartley was given it. If we're going to start dominating possession as a team again, Fernandez has to take a seat. Unbelievable that an Argentinian international can be so useless with the ball at his feet.
- Gomis - Early season form well and truly out of the window. Numerous times he was given a through ball to get on the end of, and despite getting there, he didn't have the strength, pace, shooting ability, or awareness of his teammates to even create a chance, let alone score himself. His shooting was of Sunday League standard. Defenders don't mind getting beaten by him because they know they can catch him. And if they just stand off him, he'll trip over his own feet. If he's going to chase the keeper down, do it with some passion, because jogging to the keeper and then taking an age to get back onside is not beneficial to anyone...except the other team. Ayew to start up top for me next week - Ayew spent the last 20 minutes stood directly infront of Gomis anyway. Talk about getting in each others' way. If he wants to play centrally, then let him have the shirt.
- Montero - Another who's early season form has completely gone. He is getting special attention and was often double and triple marked last night, but when we did work the space for him, while he still had the beating of Johnson, his crossing was woeful. If we're going to be successful this season, Montero has to cross with better accuracy.
- Rangel - A decent shift from the old dog, but against the lesser teams that come to the Liberty to shut up shop and hit on the break, he's just not quick enough to get back for their counter attacks. This game proved to me that Naughton and Tabanou have to be the starting full backs from next week.
- Shelvey - Ever since he said that we should be aiming for Champions League, his league form has tumbled back to the levels of before he had his public telling off by Monk. He looked lazy and lacklustre for most of the game, visibly dropping his head whenever he was beaten. Was unable to play any passes of note, and when he took his pop shots, most of them were terrible - his free kick the worst of the lot. He was unlucky when he hit the post, but overall I was really hoping that Ki was coming on to replace Shelvey, not Cork.
Those players stood out to me as needing a rocket up the arse, quickly. Bloody hell, I was even talking about possibility of bringing Routledge back into the fold next week - maybe his break will have done him good. Something has to change, because currently we've been found out and Monk doesn't seem to have any answers.
Monk - What was he doing with his substitutions?! A managerial shambles if I ever saw one. So, for the first time this season he players two out and out wingers, a system that would obviously suit Gylfi more than Ayew, and he plays Ayew in the hole. That's mistake number 1. And then when he goes to bring Gylfi on, he takes Barrow off and puts Ayew on the "right", when we all already know that Ayew eats into Gylfi's space and completely limits Gylfi's game. What?! It had to be Ayew for Gylfi - or Gomis for Gylfi and push Ayew up front. I just don't understand why, when we need to get back into a match, we reverted to the formation that has been useless for the previous four games. I praised Monk's braveness to start Barrow, but he should have given him the 90 minutes. As soon as we took Barrow off, Rangel had to operate the right flank all by himself and Stoke knew that as long as they shut Montero out on the other side, we'd only be able to come through the middle. Gylfi and Ki tried their best and played some lovely reverse passes and flicks, but while we got close to creating a clear chance, it's always difficult to pass through a 10 man defence when you don't have flank options on either side. It was a huge managerial mistake that meant that we weren't able to mount a serious barrage on their goal at any point in the final 30 minutes - Monk effectively handicapped our side even further with his substitutions. Suicide.
He needs to get back on the training field, fire Kristian O'Leary who must be the worst coach currently in the top flight, and get a midfield coach in who is going to get us zipping the ball around the middle again. We need to go back to having a midfield three, where one is given licence to get forward if necessary. Playing with two midfielders and Ayew/Gylfi playing off the striker is not working at all. 3 central midfielders, 1 striker. That's what we are, that's what we need. We have to outnumber the opposition in the middle and play them off the bloody park. Under Rodgers and Laudrup (first season), we were very good at putting away the lesser teams while giving it a jolly good go against the big boys, now we can't seem to break any of the lesser teams down and rely on the more positive approach from the top teams to leave holes at the back for us to score from. Well we can't rely on our points against the big boys to keep us up - we need to get back to basics and get back to beating the teams that we should beat on paper. Losing to Watford and Stoke is really an early sign that this season might be a struggle IF we don't get our act together - which nobody can argue that we have the quality in the squad to do.
My team for Aston Villa? Bring the reform:
GK: Fabianski
RB: Naughton
CB: Amat
CB: Williams (C)
LB: Tabanou
RW: Routledge
CDM: Cork
CM: Ki
CAM: Gylfi
LW: Montero
ST: Ayew
BENCH: Nordtfelt, Fernandez, Taylor, Barrow, Gomis, Eder, Shelvey
