Yes, excellent put down. When you look at the stats, Swansea had 8 shots on goal with none on target, whist we had 9 shots on goal and 5 on target. Most of their possession was around the half way line. I've a mate who's a Brummie fan - Fulham had 60% possession and they lost 5-2!!!
How much possession you have is irrelevant, unless it results in shots on target. The only stat that counts is the scoreline after the final whistle.
I had no idea that carrowcanario was actually Alex Neil incognito! Those were his very words in the post match conference...more or less.
Think I heard he got a bit of a knock in training and with Jarvis out for a few weeks AN didn't want to risk losing Redmond too.
I had you down for the win before kick off and the game went exactly as I thought it would, two crap teams clueless in the final third, with you parking the bus at home, and us not having the tools to break your poor defence down, just about says it all, matter of fact I felt sorry for our travelling fans that had to watch that game, anyway hopefully both teams will improve by the next encounter at our place, all the best for the season.................
What a lot of non City fans maybe don't realise is that our boss, Alex Neil has only ever had twelve (12) games in charge of a Premier League side. He's clearly learning - if you watched how we set up vs Man City last week compared to how we set up against the Swans, there's a world of difference Chris Hughton never seemed to have a plan 'b', Alex Neil clearly has several. May well be a useful ploy for Gary Monk to consider now and again
To be fair to the Jacks, I don't think many of them at all have been 'bleeting on' about their possession. I think the vast majority of them have completely accepted that we deserved to win.
I think we should give plaudits to our defence, who looked very solid, and barely gave Montero and Gomis a kick. I was pleased Wisdom has come in and hope he's made the right back slot his own, and Ryan Bennett looked very assured alongside Bassong. I agree that Brady was excellent 2nd half, and Mbokani made a big difference when he came on. Alex Neill got it right and is growing into his premier league manager role. Onwards and upwards!
Just for balance we need to bear in mind that were playing at home against a very shot=shy and out of form Swansea team with two DM's screening our defence so whilst I am delighted that we have kept a clean sheet and got three points some perspective must be taken on the performance of the defence. I felt that both our CB's looked ponderous on the ball and against a better team would have been under a lot more pressure. I do think that Ryben will continue to improve IF he is given a run in the side and his size does make a difference when we are defending high balls - hard to say crosses as Swansea didn't have many from open play. My personal opinion is that against teams with a more robust forward line the four our today should be our first four. Against smaller pacier forwards then I'd take Rusty over Ryben as his positional sense, improved distribution and timing of tackles make up for his lack of pace and size That said I agree that young Norman looked promising (but his left foot appears to be solely for balance as I don't think he touched the ball once with it) and MO looked in decent touch. I suppose having Brady and Jarvis competing with him for two slots on the left has put him under a bit more pressure to perform. Let's just hope that this clean sheet is the first of many as we can't keep needing to score two or three goals per match to get any sort of result.
As you say, it is interesting the way AN has created competition at LB without bringing another in. Brady provides competition for both LB and LW and Jarvis does the same for LW and RW. IMO O'Neil is more a defensive minded CM than a DM, as is Mulumbu, who is better than Tettey going forward, with the ability to play effective through balls as well as creating a threat in the penalty area himself.
And I thought we were bad!!!!!! Good Luck for the rest of the season - apart from when we play you!!!
Good article on AN and how he's adapting to life as a manager in the PL in today's EDP - http://www.edp24.co.uk/features/nor..._fast_learner_in_the_premier_league_1_4304048 Hopefully, he hasn't totally abandoned our attacking style of play, but he's certainly curtailed it!!
In fairness, he is seeking a balance between attack and defence and that balance has to shift when you play the top sides, or a possession obsessed team like Swansea. That balance was lost at Newcastle when players over committed to attack (against AN's tactical plan) and were burned for it on the break. I suspect the balance will tip to defence until Villa come to CR at the end of December.
