O/T Swansea 1 Spurs 3

Following this on the BBC website and they're saying that the Swansea defence is woeful and Shelvey was injured earlier and had to be to be subbed. Do you feel it's a 'poisoned chalice' for a team such as Swans or ourselves to qualify for the Europa League??

If I remember correctly, didn't Newcastle have a bad season when they qualified??

 

It does appear to be a case of 'over-stretching' the squad by playing in the Europa League, but strangely their bad run has come about since the end of the 'group matches'. It is soon to get worse for them (perhaps) as the Europa League resumes in the next few weeks, for the knockout stages.

It does go someway to highlight another significant difference between the top 5 or 6 teams, and rest of the PL. They have a lot of strength in depth, in comparison so are better equipped to handle the extra fixtures.

 

It's something that you boys won't have to worry about for many more years to come!

 

And your lot even longer!

 

Been there, seen it and done it mate!

 

Think Swansea should sack the manager and start threads like How long shall we give him and get all irrational

 

How unusual for you to bang on about history!

 

Yes,we all knew Laudrup was rubbish didn't we?

 

Some of them have been for at least a month, and it's gathering a little momentum.

 

In the other Sunday game, Vidic gets himself sent off and now misses games against Cardiff, Fulham and Stoke. Thanks!

 

It's a funny one for me, it's never a problem for the players to have to play Champs league and the Prem but it always is to play Europa and Prem.

It; will be interesting to see what happens if Everton get in the Champs league with there relatively small squad.

 

Ah well, we'll just have to win games ourselves.

 

I think the same also happened to Stoke the year or so before it happened to Newcastle... Definitely a symptom of over-stretching the squad. The mid-table teams just don't have the quality in depth to sustain an attack in another cup competition, which is also played on a Thursday. Anyone know how Fulham did in their Europa League adventure season? Did they also come up short in the Premier League?

 

Ah you must be referring to Newcastle's 2012-13 season. I remember it quite well.

 

The Europa is a ****e competition - the lunacy of letting in teams that finish third in their chumpions league group back into the competition mean that it is unnecessarily convoluted and boring.

The early start to their season. lots of long trips and injuries have certainly affected Swansea but surely they will be ok?