Another thing to be proud of!!

Firstly guys, immensely proud of our team yesterday. That was some result against a formidable & now established Premier league club. We're a small team, but everyone 'stood-tall' yesterday. No more so than 'Little-Joe' & Nathan. Man mountains, the two of them!!
Importantly, we're possibly making the Liberty a 'fortress' in the premier league too??!! Ok, it's not been any games so far against any of the so-called 'top-teams', but they don't matter anyway. The 'real battles' are against the kind of teams we've already faced at home. If we get a point or dare I say it, take all 3, against the big-one's, they'll all be a bonus!!! We've hardly ashamed ourselves against 3 of them away anyway.....

The real point I want to get at, is what I think Lee Dixon (whose opinion I respect) said on MOTD2 last night. I'm quite sure he uttered that we were the 1st promoted side to the Premier league, to go their 1st four home games, without conceding a goal!! Surely that's something to be proud of?? Ok, we've rode our luck at times, but the facts say, four homes games & four clean sheets!!! I'm proud of that, what do you all think chaps??!! As I was alluding, 'fortress-Liberty' it could well be again. We've had all the clean-sheet records of late, but that was in the Championship of course. Could we at least be making the Liberty a place, where all of the teams will have a few concerns before visiting in the Premier league too???.......

 

From BBC website

"Swansea are only the sixth different club to keep a clean sheet in each of their first four home Premier League matches of the season and the first promoted club"

 

And.... we have already got more wins than Derby achieved in their 2007/08 premier season!!! 15 more goals and we would have beaten them there too!

 

Everyone talked of not wanting us to "do a Derby" by being promoted too early. Well I'd say that we did get promoted ahead of schedule, but we're by no means "doing a Derby". We'll amass more than 11 points this season, and even if we do eventually sink back to the Championship, we'll definitely have left a mark in the Premiership.

Personally, I can see us surviving quite well this season. I don't think we'll need any points in our last two, very tough fixtures; and it'll be a great day out to play Liverpool at the Liberty with Premiership football secured for next season.

...please don't wake me up...

 

I predicted a mid-table finish at the start and I've seen little to change my mind. That's not arrogance, just a belief in our team and brilliant Manager. One weekend recently I watched 4 Prem teams in action on Sky Sports battling it out and I didn't see anything that suggested they were better than us - any of them. On that basis alone we'll be outside the bottom three.

As for the stat revealed by Lee Dixon, I'd already read that on the BBC site and it's clear we are starting to get a reputation for being tough to beat, especially at home. What's amazing is that we are strong defensively without parking the proverbial bus. Arsenal struggled to get anything without us gifting the goal and you can't read too much into Chelsea and Man City who will thump a lot of established teams this season.

I doubt we'll finish tenth but let's enjoy the moment.

 

WSAF would that be the same mr dixon, who after the Wigan game said clearly that we were werent to good at the back and would struggle not to concede lots of goals. Well eat some humble Pie. Experts what do they know.

 

I'm loving every moment of this season whether we win,lose or draw, Its unbelievable that a small city like ours are able to mix it and hold our own with the big boys of football and in some quarters pundits a saying that we are the best promoted side to come to the premiership for years. That is some praise that I'm proud of. what i am chuffed about is the way that we can put a team together and give anyone a game even though we have so many first choice players out. this goes to prove we have a squad who are all first choice players and we are lucky in that. My aim for the club is to achieve and prove the bookies wrong and reach enough points to stay in the premiership also have an outside chance of a top half finish.........Brendan is a hell of a manager and i hope any really big clubs don't come in for him and that's why i want Chelsea to do really well this season

 

In fairness to Lee Dixon, he was quick to say he was wrong on MOTD2 and complimented us on what we have achieved so far. I did sense some reservation, however, as most promoted teams, no matter how well they start, eventually fail at this level and he was aware of that. It is up to us - and I include our fantastic supporters in this - to prove him and the other pundits wrong by the end of the season. Apart from Lineker, I sense that most of them would like us to do well.

 

Well understand where your coming from, but I think the point is, the way we've gone about our 1st 7 seven games is really making the London-based media/analysts stand-up & take notice that there's more about us than just a 'pretty' footballing side. Our organisation, resilience & steel at home has been exceptional!! These guy's are paid well to give their verdicts, doesn't mean their always going to get it right!! How many of our own fans' had wriitten Danny Graham off well before yesterday??!! Stan-the-man Collymore was slagging us off a few weeks ago for our inability to put the ball in the net. He kept banging-on about our 'possession-football' with no end product!! Forgetting, that as long as you got the ball, the opposition are pretty unlikely to hurt you!! Well we've started to answer that, we still need to improve on that aspect I feel. People need to have a 'pop' more often. Dobbie's usually the one not scared too!! There's been other pundits too, who have had severe reservations about our survival chances. Maybe it's nice just to prove them wrong, yet again!!
As for Dixon, I do generally like the way he analyses matches. The way we play football, I think hopefully he would be more than happy to put his hand up & say he was wrong.....

 

Lets just hope we keep doing it all season. stick one up the so called pundits who tipped us as certs to go down. to be fair they or should i say some seem to be changing their views as the weeks go by.

Just to change this guys slightly, on the subject of things to be proud of. A little thank you or well done to all th fans in the liberty yeaterday. the noise on times was amazing LOUD LOUD LOUD. Dont underestimate what that does for the players on the pitch. Its no coincindence that Brendan is mentioning the noise every week. for all of us we need to keep it up even through any possible challenging times to come. to all of us there Take a Bow.

 

The 'Welsh Britannia' for sure. I think we'll be tough to beat there this season.

Shearer was the only pundit who fancied us to stay up from the start.

 

'Welsh Brittania'!! Could be!! I'll take that if it means we stay-up. As long as we don't resort to their way of 'football' (using that loosely in their case)!! No offence any Potters......

Shearer did say that in all fairness. He would've remembered how we played them off the park (Toon) at the 'Welsh Brittania!!

 

Lol. Was there for that one. Very luck boy was Carroll. Scoring late in the game when he should have been off well before that. £35M? You're having a laugh.

 

It was a top finish from him, to be honest. Don't think I've ever left the Liberty so ballistic in it's existence!! Took me the rest of the day to come down from that late blow!! Our midfield had Nolan & Smith in their back-pockets. Didn't he go up with the elbow??!!

 

He should've walked, no doubt. Jumped running full tilt, led with the elbow and caught Monk square in the face, I was there and had a great (if you can call it that) view. The only thing that stopped him going off was Monk's, unsurprising, reaction. Straight on his feet, no fuss.

 

Very interesting. I did think Lee Dixon was very magnanimous in his comments over us. Paul Merson said the very same thing last week after the West Brom game. He was very honest saying that he had us down as a dead cert for relegation, lowest points scored etc. But he was very complimentary about our style of play, and not only would we just stay up we would finish high up the table.

Always thought Mark Lawrenson is very fair with his assessments of us, god help when old Hansen has a pop at us.

I think were slowly showing the media were a decent team, and play the game, the right way.

 

Yes, Hansen has not had much of an opportunity to have a pop yet but he loves solid defensive displays and we've been putting in a lot of those lately so you never know.

 

all i see Hansen and lawrence do is STATE THE BEEDING OBVIOUS.......what a waste of licence fee money...

 

Dai what about Claridge then ?

 

To me Hansen is the premier league version of Claridge.
The mood has certainly lifted on here after that gritty win and talk of us staying up is getting louder too, cant fault it.
If we do then an academy and extention to the liberty may become a reality ?