Do you know how much our team cost? Who's saying we had a divine right to victory? All I'm saying is we SHOULD have had a point, had it not been for a completely shocking refereeing decision. Sure, some players didn't play amazingly, but you can pay £50million for a world-class striker and he can perform far worse over a far longer time period. Look at the teams below us - they have all spent, more or less, more money than us and for us to maintain our status in the top half requires performances from the Swansea players which are almost impossible to put in week in week out. Having seen how quick people are to criticise players in the past, I feel this is unduly harsh. West Brom are a good team, and no they didn't play amazingly but they were bang up for it, and had it not been for an unlucky own goal, a dodgy penalty decision and a perfectly good goal being ruled out, we might have got something. It's impossible for players to be on top-form every week (I'm not saying some of the players who under-performed yesterday have been playing well in the build up to the game) and the key is to keep winning whilst still not performing to 100%. While we didn't come that close to winning, I felt we were worthy of a point and it would have been a fair (and good) result away at West Brom.
If you think its harsh to have a go at the team thats fair enough, i beleive in being objective when the time is right and the time is now IMO. I said nothing about us getting pumped at Liverpool,said nothing when we were crap against West Ham,i understood why we fell off the pace against Newcastle,i said nothing when we were sloppy away at Sunderland,reading and southampton. Point is that sometimes we need to look at the flip side and not keep our head in the sand when we fail to perform. I can tell you for a fact that the likes of Laudrup will not accept those kinds of performance and will be working on our mental toughness the longer he is with us, you already see him talk about it in his press conferences,talking about how hard it was for the players to get up for everton away and newcastle at home and the fact they did was what made him most happy! By talking about how much our team cost you are talking more negative than most, almost like your using the "little old swansea" tag as an excuse for failiure. You and many others have to get your head around one thing, WE ARE HERE ON MERIT AND HAVE THE DIVINE RIGHT TO COMPETE AND WIN AGAINST OUR PEERS ! talking about how little our team cost and the small wages paid means nothing when your out on the pitch most of the time,maybe against one or two teams but WBA ?? ... But if you want to quantify yesterday's loss in transfer fee's thats fine . Our three most average players yesterday were 1. Ki cost £5.5m 2. Pablo H. cost £5m 3. JDG cost,loan but will cost us £7m to sign in the summer Again that blows your argument out of the water regarding how much our team cost. Also have a look at how much WBA spent assembling their team,you will be pleasantly suprised
And its the transfer values of these players that make me sometimes think they turn it on when tthey want to and sometimes think they are better than they actually are,doing the spade work and getting a foot in is the least we must expect ,going missing in action when leon isnt around is something that is happening far too often considering the value of Ki and JDG. who i think are both very good players and are players ive stood up for on this forum more often than not
We fell off the pace against Newcastle? I was at that match mate and if you think we fell off the pace you are sadly mistaken, and there's no point me debating football with you.
Well if thats your view on the Newcastle game then fair enough, if you feel im not worth debating football with because our views differ then your arrogance as a football fan far out weigh anyone else's on this Forum and its probably best you stick to writing novels on your blog A very nice deflection from the points i made to you about the cost of our team compared to theirs, strange why you want to talk about Newcastle all of a sudden, i thought we were talking about WBA and our small team of under privillaged footballers,the ones that are on the bread line compared to the billionaires of WBA .. Off you go then scott as i clearly know nothing and you know everything
Barring some cataclysmic cosmic event there are only two certainties in this life. One is that the sun will rise each day. The other is that after a Swansea City defeat, Norway will post an article in search of the guilty parties and Ivoralljack will be 'fuming' and will repeat his opinion that the midfield needs an enforcer. I'd like to thank both of them for bringing some much needed consistency and stability in an otherwise chaotic world.
.... and the third is that aswan will always chip in with sarcastic comments and not even bother to post anything football related ! Good luck in trying to find related comments after the Liverpool,reading away and west ham games aswan
And i also have to pull you up on another thing .actually the Sun doesnt rise in parts of Alaska and i beleive in the arctic and antartic regions at certain times of the year
I think you will find that my opinion regarding the lightweight performance of both Ki and JdG yesterday has been voiced by many other reporters - sometimes opinion is fact unless one is blind to the glaringly obvious. I have no way of knowing but I fully expect ML to act on this deficiency, if he hasn't already done so with his proposed signings. The word "enforcer" is a generic term for midfield players who take proper, NOT TOKEN, responsibility for defensive work when not in possession. In our case, this involves making telling tackles on a regular basis to regain the ball so we can get on with our own game. It does not involve shuffling about the pitch marking no one in particular or running behind or alongside the opponent in possession without making a credible challenge. Remind you of anyone in our team? I keep on about this because it is a genuine weakness in our team. We are very good going forward: with Chico at the back, our defence is pretty sound. But anyone who has played the game will tell you that the defence needs the midfield to share the workload and, in this situation, JdG and Ki are about as much use as chocolate teapots. Yes, they are good going forward but, for a midfielder, this is only half the job. We are on the verge of becoming a very good team indeed but I think that Michael Laudrup, whose experience of the requirements to be successful in the Premier League is still limited, will some time ago have realised that we need more steel to go with the style. This man is nobody's fool and I expect him to rectify the problem in the summer transfer market.
As you know Ivor we dis agree on the enforcer thing but i agree with you on the aspect of Ki and JDG sometimes not doing enough in a game. It is sometimes very obvious to see and yesterday was an example of that. People keep thinking that we are poor little swansea but those two players are valued at £5.5m and £7m quid respectively and its not too much to ask for them to put some spade work in when Leon isnt around . A weird game yesterday as even with our failiures in midfield and defence we still had enough to get something from the game, thats the frustrating thing though because an extra 5/10% from the likes of JDG or Ki would have made a big difference . I suspect both these players will be bringing their "A" game to the Arsenal match at home though, nothing wrong with talking objectively about the team we love, you can garentee that Laudrup is looking at the midfield position with intrest especially as Kemy has failed to perform when given a chance,there is room for improvement there thats for sure.
Say what you like about Ki an de Guzman, but it was Pablo who ruined everything. He has a good game once every 5 games or so and that's not good enough. Whereas other players may go missing for large periods Pablo was way worse because he was actually a liability - causing us huge problems. If he had gone missing then it would have been better for us. Terrible performance from him. Terrible.
I mentioned Pablo in the OP stereo and also the fact that Ash williams was bouncing with rage a few times when pablo gave the ball away!! he goes from one extreme to the other does Pablo!! being a bit further up the field does cause less problems but yesterday his game was off big time. Pablo is an Enigma thats for sure!
Not as much as I was when I seen him let the WBA player cross the ball in for the first goal. All the criticism has been laid at Monks door, but Ash should have at least attempted to stop the ball coming in.
Norway, from memory it wasn't me who first used the term "enforcer" - I use the word to generally describe a player who will put his foot in and keep doing it. I don't want a Vinny Jones type in there, just someone who brings energy and some bite. Look, I know enough to realise when a player is just going through the motions. A player who makes a token effort at a challenge before passing on the responsibility to someone else. Ki and JdG all too often fit into this category. Of course they are good in attack. If they weren't they wouldn't get within a country mile of playing for our team because they offer little else. My guess is that Michael Laudrup will look to stiffen the midfield when he can and it's just a shame that Kemy didn't step up when he had the chance. I thought he could and I was wrong, as he flattered to deceive. Like you, I felt that we could have got something from this game but it is an object lesson that we are not that good a team we can afford players to fall off the pace and still expect to get a result. Ki and JdG aren't the only culprits but they do seem to pick and choose the times they decide to play. Put it this way, if de Guzman was as bloody-minded and battled as hard for the ball as he did with Nathan Dyer, we'd have a hell of a player on our hands.
Ivor- Yes the term enforcer is not one i pinned to you specifically, i just used that term as a loose description. I beleive Canas is a player being closely linked and from what ive heard he enjoys a tackle or two!! maybe just what we need as i find JDG and Ki too similar sometimes. I am convinced they pick and choose games to play, maybe not intentially of course but in terms of mental focus im talking about. Valley- I agree that Ash could have done a bit better but so could have Ben Davies, trouble is that Monk is looking across the field of play knowing pretty much where the ball is going to come,the fact that his anticipation was slow is suprising considering his experience,as a defender to be almost a yard off a striker who is attacking the near post is very poor, im not overly angry at Monk as i know he does his best but also being nowhere near for their headed goal was another example of not being quick enough in mind and body. Pablo has a nightmare from time to time , Ki has the odd game where i wonder where the **** his price tag came from and JDG sometimes likes to float around and not put in the serious graft when needed. Michu didnt cover himself in glory yesterday either but he can be excused the odd bad game cant he !!
Don't know who the commentators were on the Canadian version but they vey quickly picked up on Pablo's mis-passes and mentioned it every time - must have been 95% of his passes went to the baggies - even the easy ones. That wa n't really my opinion it was a statement of what I saw. They were also amazed that he stayed on when Dyer came on until they heard Luke had a knock. The baggies only threatened when they did on thing - hoof it. Credit where credit's due hoofing it to Lukaku is not a bad tacticas he was winning most of the hoofs. I'm sorry to say but we're at our worst when Monk is in and Leon's not. Ash doesn't seem to take control of the team when he has to second guess Gary - and without Leon to take the heat of the ball gets to be like a pinball. Saying that if Michu had scored (the way he does 9 times out of 10) the earlier chance - it would have been candidate for goal of the month - maybe 6 or 7 slick passes from our box and in the net - ah well!. Don't think we were terrible - don't think we were great but have no doubt Pablo had a stinker and we can't afford that as it disrupts any flow we try and establish
As I posted earlier than one option they used was to hit a long ball which was effective and when Lukaku went off then so did their attacking threat.Ki yet again seems to lose concentration and appears not to be ready for the pass ,he may be the bees knees in Korea but I'm beginning to lose patience with him, for a big lad he won't put his foot in ( he needs to look to Leon for some tips )
A few of them had stinkers lumberjack, it happens and we as fans have justification in saying so when it happens, it doesnt mean we love the team any less it just means that we decide to call a spade a spade !! I agree with the point you make aout being minus Britton with plus Monk it drains ash williams IMO. Ive not seen him as angry since,well....last week actually !! he was feeling some heat in that game too
Is it not a fact that Wba were as good as us as we are of them and they had the bit of luck yesterday that we have had ourselves on a few occasions. no complaints that they won as its not their fault that the linesman got it wrong...it happens all the time in football....
