Ashley Williams on the effects of the Europa Cup. His interview is in the SWEP and abridged in the WM. He speaks about the great experience in Europe but then goes on to explain how it impacted on our league performances. "But another fact is that if you fly back on a Friday you can't do anything and then you've got one day before the game. It can be tough like that. .... it was a great experience, the only thing is you don't get to work so much on the next game. Now we've got a good few days before each game to work on the opponents." Seems to me he is putting up a strong defence for Michael Laudrup's efforts here, although I doubt very much he intended to. So what about all the fine rhetoric from Monk about getting the players match fit? I've asked the question before and I'm asking it again, this time with Williams' help. Exactly WHEN and HOW was this new training regime going to be fitted into the crippling schedule of fixtures we had? Easy to talk about, not so easy to do, Garry, as you found out against Palace. Referring to Williams again, he now says that the team can rest up and concentrate on the run in because they only have a NORMAL run of fixtures to contend with. Laudrup had it anything but normal and I feel too many people did not take that into consideration when they were screaming for his head. Was it any wonder that the team struggled? In retrospect, I feel we didn't do too badly at all particularly when you consider that our points total could and should have been much better but for some bungling officials. Oh, and let's NOT forget the horrendous injury list as some would like to. This post is not intended to reopen the old debate. Sadly and, in my opinion to our detriment, Laudrup has gone but I felt a sense of perspective was required and the fact that it was provided by Monk's good buddy Williams lends added weight to it. Anyway, the "horse" has spoken. Things are BACK TO NORMAL. That being the case, I expect Monk not only to deliver Premier League football next season but to do it with style. Anything less would be abject failure. Let's hope Monk and the team deliver because we have now been informed that all is in their favour.
So what was all the internal "strife" about. Where did that come from I wonder. Shame a plenty to go around perhaps. If things are back to normal can we now please not see Lita again. Time to deliver. We are out of everything but the league ..... Significant degrees of difficulty no longer exist. I expect to finish mid table, at the top of the "bottom" league - if we can't do that then what was the point of the change.
Just you wait until all those "easy" games materialise. The points will flow in through the front door of The Liberty faster than they can be counted.Sixth place will be assured. Perhaps we could even lend/sell some of our spare points to our beleaguered neighbours. The season will end and we'll all sit back in our deckchairs wondering what all the fuss was about.
We didn't have any Europa games between mid-December and the end of February. So there's no fig leaf for Laudrup to hide behind there.
No, we just had half the side out with injuries and the half that were left were knackered from the previous run of fixtures. Bet they'd have all been just dying to get into Monk's extra training schedule.
Lets get a perspective here for crying out loud, Laudrup had Zero man management skills, and he couldn't motivate a booze up in a brewery, and was leaving in the summer anyway, his coaching with us has been cut short by 12 weeks or so, what's the big deal? If he valued his position, then maybe he should have co-operated with our Board more, they are after all his paymasters, but no his ego was too big for that, so no point trying to read into things, the guy blew it big time, lets move on from this Laudrup romance please!.......
So what about the West Ham game? Almost everyone fit, and probably the most ***** performance in many years. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Stop fabricating and grasping at straws - at least try to be intellectually honest if not emotionally.
Omg Ivor! You've started a thread that will go in forever based on ifs and insults. It'll be a good laugh for the neutral reader. As the Obama spindoctor said: they've got their facts, we've got ours...
Please someone, for pity's sake, close this lame excuse of a forum. It's an embarrassment and insult to all human intelligence. I'm off to support my club, my team, my Swans. Fcuk you dickheads
I'm afraid I've got to agree with Stumpy. I'm now skipping thread after thread because of this tiresome Laudrup/Monk nonsense. I've hardly ever skipped threads before, even accounting for "Dai wars". He's gone, let's move on.
But ... it's not over. We have a contract to settle, a novice manager in place to close out this season, a possible new manager to hire at season's end, and players to recruit in the summer. The repercussions are not going to be over for months yet. And ..... worst comes to worse .... a lot of empty season ticket seats.
ML was rarely seen watching and involved with the U-21's. Looks like he only wanted to manage the senior squad, which to me appears to be one of the reasons - eroding the principles for the club and what it stood for? Think Roberto and Brendan were involved with every aspect of the club.
The same comments could be aimed at you I am afraid Phil. You and Dai repeatedly tells us about Laudrup's lack of motivation and poor man management. What we never consider is that possibly the board had poorly managed Laudrup. Perhaps they made it obvious to everyone that they expected him to leave and were offering little transfer support. Laudrup's position may have been impossible and he was the left unmotivated? And of course if we want to end this debate, then someone should tells us the absolute truth if they can or we stop responding to these threads. I don't mean one of the infamous FACT statements.
I specifically said that my thread was NOT intended to reopen the debate and I meant that. I DID say that Williams' statement gave some sort of perspective to the accusations that Laudrup's training methods were not up to standard. Bear in mind that Williams was Monk's cohort in whingeing to the board about this matter. Now Williams has come out and said that, with game after game, there was, in fact, little time to train properly. EXACTLY!! So did they point out this to Jenkins mid-whinge, or at any time? I also asked the question about when and how this "up-scaled" training would take place. Williams has already said that there was little time to prepare properly between games - and player after player have voiced the fact that the extra Europa cup games were exhausting for them. As I said, Laudrup is now history so I'm not resurrecting this old debate. But the questions I'm asking are fair enough in the context of Williams' statement, which bear out the fact that the harsher training regime that he and Monk moaned about was just NOT POSSIBLE given the games we had to play. As I said, from the horses mouth.
You said it yourself Ivor - it's history! Let's all move on and get right behind Garry and the boys. Will always be grateful to Laudrup for what he achieved but he has gone; rightly or wrongly Monk is now our manager and I will support him to the end. Will be interested in Laud's future prospects, and wish him all the best, but he is no longer a Swan; Garry is and has always been so will now be putting my support 100% behind him.
