How do you approach a game in which you don't need to win and don't need to score? It's an unusual situation for a club like us to be in - more like the Champion's League knockout phase. "Attack is the best form of defence". Should we go on the front foot in an attempt to stop them laying siege to our goal? If we did score first that might well finish them off. Alternatively, we've played very defensively against Chelsea & Everton in the last 2 games with good success and two clean sheets. Do we go for a 0-0? Even if they get one we will still progress. Or how about somewhere in the middle? Push on but not in too great numbers. Got a feeling it's going to be a nerve-wracking evening...
I mentioned in another thread that the first team to score will go through, it's vital that the swans are that first team, so we need to approach the game to win it. I don't think laudrup will be setting the team up in the same way as the first game, attack, score and win IMO
We will play them on the break again i think.They didnt score last week so we must take heart from that.
Just f**king go for it. They always say that 2 0 is the worst one to have. But i think we just play as we always do at home and the rest will sort itself out. I hope.
the best way is to do what we do best, our defense is solid at the moment and we must trust them to keep it that way. we should also keep the midfield very tight with short accurate passes and let michu have a free reign so he can pounce on anything that goes astray. I dont want to see him in our half for this game as chelsea knows what he can do and will have two or even three players keeping a good eye on him and if he is moving freely up front it will unsettle chelsea's defense big time. .One goal by us will settle it. I would also put tremmel in goal to use his extra height in case it goes to penalties which im not expecting...
A very important 1st 20 minutes. We have to try and get that 1st goal else it will be like Rourkes Drift!
No doubt a tough decision. Both approaches can fail miserably or succeed in glory so maybe might as well go with what has worked in recent games against the big teams.
They will prob come at us all guns blazing so tight defence & midfield and hope for the breakaway goal off mitchu first half, hold out long enough and they will panic a bit getting desperate for a goal leaving gaps and getting sloppy then we can counter more often and really shake em up. But if they nick a goal earlyish then it will get tricky, better to go out fighting for a convincing win than risk shutting shop and letting another one in late in the game. I hope ML has a plan B,C & D for this one !
Norway is right, I think. Any team other than one of the big boys and I think Laudrup would go for it, but not Chelsea. We'll try and absorb as much as we can and then hit them on the break. I do tink Laudrup will want us to score but anything else and we'll be leaving ourselves wide open against a world class attack.
This a game where the manager and team will really earn their corn ,either plan A,B, C or D or any other combination can win or lose this one ( obvious I know ), I can't see us hanging on defensively for 90 minutes so I expect a fairly open game at first and who scores first really doesn't matter ,if it's us then it's backs to wall as they'll be going all out and the same if they score first then to get the second and winner .
Same as first leg I think. Abandon any thoughts of attack and try to keep the match in our half for as long as possible. Eventually their defence will screw up due to the lack of involvement. Easy.
I like the Rourkes Drift idea, build a sandbag barrier in front of goal and shoot anyone who attacks it. That should do it!
The keys to this one are two simple things: winning possession back quickly when we lose it; and, no sloppy passing (i.e. not beating ourselves and giving the ball away on the cheap). If we can do both of those things efficiently, which we have struggled to do the last few weeks, we can take the pressure off ourselves, retain possession and make Chelsea work harder than they'd like - the harder they work earlier in the game the easier it's going to be for us in the last 20 of the match. The one impact player that killed us at the Bridge was Luiz playing in a deep midfield role. He won everything he challenged for and was creative and dangerous when pushing forward. It's all very well trying to play clever through balls and cutesy little one touch, but we need to keep the fancy stuff for the final third and make sure our bread is buttered the rest of the way.
I would play with the following team: Tremell & Vorm in goal Rangel, Jazz, Bartley, Monk, Chico, Ash, Ben (a solid defence) Michu (a token goal threat) Dyer (a token speedster to hassle their defence) That should so it
That's a tad to offensive for me. Swap Leon for Dyer and that sounds about right. Wouldn't it be funny if no one had ever thought about playing two goalkeepers and there was actually no law against it. Anyone got a FA rule book!
Seeing as Ivor Emmanuel is no longer with us I suggest Ashley Williams plays his part (bit of imagination needed) Chico plays Stanley Baker and Michu a young Michael Caine and if John Terry starts banging his spear on his shield he gets both barrels and a chorus of Hymns and Arias!
We don't want to sit back to much because eventually, they will hurt us. Keep it tight for the first quarter, neat passing and make them work. Look for michu and try and give him the killer ball. Second half they'll hopefully tire and make it a little easier for us. 2:1 on aggregate to us i think.
I agree with Chico and Yankee - it's all very well being defensive and that's the right way to play this one - but gifting the ball to quality players has to stop. Against Chelsea and more recently at Everton I lost count of the time that we passed the ball straight to one of the opposition. We can't keep doing that.
