On saturday I found out in football possession does not mean domination. If you have a bairn and to keep him amused you give him a saucepan and wooden spoon, the kid has possession but he has been conned so his parent can get on with important matters his parents are dominating. Manure v Arsenal at times Manure had possession and dominated Arsenal you did not. This much quoted 60% sat you keep repeating like a mantra, half if it was passing the ball in your own half with the back 4 and keeper. When you came into our half we took the ball off you, broke quickly and had a go at your goal, You had one freekick from your Icelandic guy that Ming had to save that was it. Thanks for the 3 points and naive tactics, p.s. yes we were hopeless on Saturday worst I've seen us play this season, but you were no threat whatsoever. There may be worse teams in the league compared with you so you may survive but delusions of ability etc. will not help you goals for and against are the only stat that matters.
Barca play the same way as us so try telling them they're doing it wrong. Keep glossing over your poor team which hasn't changed since you came to our place. You'll survive comfortably but you're really not that good, and Saturday was just one of those days for us. Teams that can finish would have been out of sight half time. Just thank your lucky stars you've got MON who has the ability to motivate. 2 shots on goal at home? Come on. Two superb goals but had they not gone in you'd be upset with that stat. Dai: If it's 'not your job' to pick the team why do you keep insisting that Rodgers got his starting 11 wrong on Saturday? OK, if he got it so wrong who would you have picked? It's not an unreasonable question.
i'll put it this way, when sunderland played arsenal (live on sky) it was like watching barcelona play accrington stanley, complete, total domination. somehow sunderland, through larsson made the teams, on paper, closely matched, but in reality it was nothing like that. last week arsenal played swansea, now that was more closely matched, yes arsenal had an off day but swansea played arsenal at their own game and came away with the points. sunderland are a very 'english' team, overall a lack of technical quality, but they grind out results and defend resolutely
Classic, the difference is Barca pass the ball forward and score goals you don't......That's the most comfortable win at home this season for me. Im surprised our players did'nt go for a cup of tea while you passed it sideways and backwards
Are Sunderland fans having a pop to cover up their own inadequacies? If we replayed that game next week and the week after, the chances are that Sunderland wouldn't score two spectacular goals and that Swansea would be more clinical in front of goal and have a bit more penetration than last Saturday. The result would likely be very different. I can understand that Sunderland think our game is ineffective based on Saturday's showing but it doesn't cover up the fact that for the last hour of the game Sunderland could hardly get out of their own half.
Check the form guide mate. So you had the possession after we scored. We had the lead why do anything silly? We knew all we had to do was sit tight, defend our lead against your rather poor strike force and hit you with a sucker punch. It worked very well.
if that's was sunderland's plan, then they got very lucky on saturday. imagine the sort of player's we could attract with the money sunderland are wasting on mainly donkey's, it won't be long lads before we're in front of teams like sunderland, they're nothing more than modern day dinosaurs.
I think it's fair to say that most teams who go 1-0 up after 15 minutes try to get a second to give themselves some breathing space.
Well you wouldnt win we've played you twice and you hav'nt scored...........Blackburn and Wigan had more chances against us than your team, I cant understand how you think you were so great cause you can pass the ball from full back, defender, defender, full back, keeper for most of the game.
Lucky??? Well that's your opinion, that said. You make your own luck in this world. As for the money thing, seems to be the only argument you have left. We beat City a couple of weeks ago. How much have they spent? In Premiership terms our outlay has been very modest. In fact Bruce spent nowt in his 2 plus years and up till now neither has MON. Donkeys and dinosaurs eh....Straws and clutching more like. Cheers for the points...After all, that's what counts...
We didnt need to cause you were having a knock about with your back 4 and keeper so it was easier just to let you get on with it, while Mignolet popped off to get a cuppa and a mince pie
Yes but most teams don't decide to defend for the next 70 minutes and then get a second Dyno: If you're satisfied with that performance then all's well, but the discerning fans of Swansea wouldn't tolerate it. Here in South Wales we are more forward-thinking and play football for the 21st century not the 19th.
I dont get were your getting "defend for the next 70 mins" from we didnt have anything to defend, I dont get were your coming from. And your missing the point we didnt need to get out of 2nd gear to beat you, your not as good as what you think. you talk as though your a top team who have graced top flight football for years and played slick passing football all through your history, its your first season if you get relegated do you really think you will get promoted again?
You couldn't get out of second gear more like. 2 wonder strikes were the difference, and nobody can argue with that really. Look, you play your way, we'll play ours. You got the points on Saturday with 2 shots on target all game. Good for you. Let's agree to disagree as to how good / bad, effective/ non-effective the Swans actually are. We'll see at the end of the season won't we?
Ok if that's what you think, bury your head in the sand, you'll know what I mean by the middle of May
The harsh fact is that we got nothing from the game except Brendan's blarney about how fantastic we were, when in reality in the final third we were anaemic with 64% possession. As somebody has said possession and domination are two differents things and Sunderland dominated by scoring 2 goals and easily blocking / smothering everything we tried to create in the final third. In isolation, this game can be chalked up to the nature of the game - played well, looked pleasing on the eye, much better football, got beat by two goals that came out of the blue .... but such games get woven into the tapestry of the season and contribute mightily to the final reckoning. As we have said in season's past there are no pointts foor style just scoring more goals than the opposition regardless of how ugly it looks. We need 5 wins from 16 games down the final stetch to be safe. On paper not a big ask if we're as good as we'd like to think we are. In practice, the Sunderland's of this world are going to kill us and everybody around us and below as are going to be "Sunderland's" if we don't get our **** together in the final third and find a ruthless, clinical, cutting edge to convert 64% posession into more goals than the opposition - that's all it takes is one more goal, we don't have to win by a ton - even if it means bludgeoning and battering the ball into the net or having it ricochette of somebody's backside. I hate losing. I particularly hate losing the way we lost on Saturday. I can take solace and satisfaction from some of the performances and frustation from some of the others. But I hate losing. I don't like blarney, it becomes tiresome. I hope BR sees the isssues, I am confident that he does and I recognize the moves made over the last month to stengthen and resurrect our style of play from the lows of Everton. I hope the blarney can be replaced by a more realistic statements along the lines of we harvested three points, we worked hard, we applied our style and crafted a victory against a club that played us well. Everybody is going to be playing us well as we go forward, we just have to find ways to be smarter, craftier, uglier and more clinical. I don't care about dominating posession, I care about dominating the result - that's "fantastic".
Can't really disagree with most of that, YJ. Although I accept Rodgers is quick with the old blarney after every game I think he's right about Saturday. We did play well, but didn't have our shooting boots on. Dominating possession increases your chances of scoring whilst simultaneously reducing the other side's chances too. We had 4 on target to their 2, remember. One of those days and we deserved better imo.
