Match Day Thread Swansea City 0 v 2 Manchester United

I thought £20 to watch a Man U training session was good value!

 

Really annoyed we lost
but ..
IMO
our best performance of the season.
Rangel, Routledge, Ki and Van der Hoorn routinely combined to get us going forward with quick passing. A breath of fresh air after the ponderous and negative play of Sanches, Narsingh and Carroll.
Mawson slowed everything down but made some important headers.
Rocky played quite well too.
Would we have fared better with Fabianski in goal? Possibly, but their second was outstanding.
Abraham and Fer were introduced too late IMO
Clucas and McBurnie need to go out on loan in January.
Olsson's injury looked like an extension of one he's been carrying for months and has really screwed us up since we let our only other left back leave!
Until Abraham was introduced we looked toothless but were creating far more. Having watched stodge since August I was taken aback by how quick Routledge is and how often he covered back.
Before writing this game and the players off consider some have barely played this season and they have not played together.

(Although United were fairly comfortable for much of the second half and I don't question the result, should we have had three penalties? I'm going on the soft free kicks United were given just outside our penalty area and then a similar foul was committed on Rangel - maybe - in their area and ... nothing. Then there was a definite push on Fer and shirt pulling on Abraham in the second half.)

 

Best performance of the season Bob ??????? You must have watched a different game....It was awful ..

 

I thought the players on the pitch couldn't have done any more. What finished it for me was that at 2-0 up they sent on Matic and Lukaku. We can't compete any more.

 

Check out @SwansOfficial’s Tweet:

 

I think this sums it up....

Check out @VitalSwansea’s Tweet:

Olsson hamstring gone. One left-back at the club. That's not bad luck. It's piss-poor planning and recruitment. Again.


And that gents is what is so fukn annoying.Never learnt from last season.
Fukn arrogance by the owners and board.

 

Hi Bob - from my perspective, if that's our best performance of the season so far, then we will be relegated come the end if the season.

I didn't post last night - I wanted to sleep on it......

Some observations - in no particular order:

A) that was the most lethargic "cup match" I've ever witnessed. United didn't really (need to) get out of second gear. Where was the cut and thrust of a typical cup-tie? We lacked urgency, pace and, I'm sorry to say, talent. Let's not forget that it was a pretty "weak" United team that took to the field at the start of the match - it's all relative, I know, but their weak team is mikes better than our best XI. Why didn't we get into their faces?

B) whilst Ollie worked his socks off and had some nice touches, he was largely isolated. We didn't have any cutting edge until Tammy came on and by then it was far too late.

C) I note what you say about Rangel. However, I found his performance "sad" - the guy's legs have gone and if he has to play against Arsenal's first XI on Saturday, then Clement may need to play 6 at the back. Don't forget, it was Rangel who lost the ball in the build up to United's first goal and he failed to get back and cover.

D) as for Routledge, yes he ran about a lot, but he's not PL standard any more. Why did he not shoot when he had that opportunity in the first half?

E) Clucas to me looks like he is short of confidence

The Yanks have one agenda - Cash. But they need to realise that if they want to maximise the value of their investment, then they need to spend cash on players good enough to keep them in the PL. Clement has spoken about spending money in January - feck me, it should have been spent before the bloody season started......

Getting control of the Stadium will help grow value, but PL status is the real value "generator".

Just my opinion

 

Spoke to a couple of their players after the game (I was waiting for a friend whose kid wanted autographs and a few players filtered out to sign autographs possibly Lingard and someone) and and they reckoned it was harder than they expected!

TBH I can't see how anyone could say that was lethargic!
But that's opinion.

What I liked about Routledge and Rangel with Ki inside was for the first time in ages we saw triangle passes getting beyond the defence.
Maybe if these were given the game time others have had they would be sharper. Agree about Routledge not shooting but that could said of quite few including Abraham (who took us up a level or 2).
Unsure about Clucas. Personally I don't think he's any better than Fulton and that money could have made a big impact elsewhere. Hull fans who have commented were quite varied in their assessment but all have said he can't play full back.

Any opinion on the penalty calls?
I thought they were soft but lesser contact had seen United getting fee kicks all over the pitch.

 

Hi Bob - several people I spoke to last night and today all said virtually the same - it looked like a training session. As for the United players, well I suppose "They would say that wouldn't they?"

The principal issues for me are the lack of a playmaker and no real quality on the flanks. Hopefully Dyer & Routledge can get "up to speed" after a few games under their belts.

As for the penalties, with Madley reffing anything is possible - but how often do we get given "soft" penalties against a "Top Team"?

 

Lets go through where we got our team that has been assembled in the 7 years we have been in the prem.

Olsson - relegated team
Fer - relegated team
Ayew - relegated team
Clucas - relegated team

Fabianski - wasn't good enough to play
Naughton - wasn't good enough to play
Carroll - wasn't good enough to play
Bartley - wasn't good enough to play
VDH - wasn't good enough to play
Sanches - wasn't good enough to play

Who of them have been successes? Of them you could pick around 2 or 3 who have done well for us, Fab being a no brainer. But thats about the success rate you expect when you are taking chances on players with that kind of history.
Look at the players who were excelling before they arrived. Michu, was la ligas highest scoring midfielder the season before he joined us, was brilliant for us.
Bony, had banged in 30 goals in 31 games prior to joining, scored a hat full for us in his first stint. Bony is the perfect example of what I am trying to get at here. It's easy for a player to keep playing well when we have signed them on form. Its extremely difficult for a player to all of a sudden find form after struggling for the last year or more.
Fair enough if you find the odd struggling player with great ability to try and get the best out of them around a confident team. But we keep signing these off form players and expect them to suddenly pull out of it, even though everyone around them is also playing ****. Its ludicrous.
We are being grossly mismanaged and its all down to the recruitment - or lack off- from the board.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41746106

 

A couple of tables outlining the difference in experience (and quality) in the ams last night.
Both teams presented second string set ups with a mixture of old, young and retiring from injury.
While we all hope the Swans will win every game, in truth, we would expect a club like Man United to come here and win - even when we were playing wonderful football (Yes we have beaten them when they were going through transition and we were on top of our game) so why would we expect our second string to win against theirs? If anything their strength in depth should see their also rans as being far superior to almost all PL teams.
Anyway ...

 

Wouldn't take issue with much of that.
Out of interest our stats v Man U
First team
I found this interesting as Clement said we were only undone in a five minute spell late on.


Second string
but in this game he could give virtually no positives.

 

Lies, Damn lies & statistics

 

Only when they don't tell the story we want

 

Bob - take a look st the stats for the Huddersfield match

 

I did but thought a better comparison was with the two united games

 

Bob We were poor at passing, Every Time we had the ball we were quickly dispersed of the ball. we ended up hacking united players in frustration, there was no game plan and if there was i never saw it and the only player who showed some skill was tammy and he came on as a late sub. The sports writer for the EP describes the game as "Dismal Swans not at the races" ....

 

My old man who has been watching the Swans for 70 years described us as "poor" last night.

Can't disagree

 

I trust he said “Piss Poor”.