OK I watched and enjoyed last night's game, as a Man City fan, not an anti Swansea thing, I don't think 4 - 0 was a fair relection of the game, and a lot of teams are going to get spanked at Man City, Swansea showed enough for me in the first half especially to suggest they could well survive in the premiership, and I think that they might well turn the Liberty into a bit of a fortress, and this home form could well be enough to keep them up. Positives for me as a relative "neutral" were that Swansea stuck to their principles and played their slick passing football, and Sinclair, and a few of the other Swans players didn't look overawed or out of their depth. Negatives, for all the Swans nice football, they seemed to lack a cutting edge at this level, and could struggle for goals, but then again they are not going to come up against defences as mean as Man City's every week. I think that the Swans might be a bit like Blackpool, they are going to win a lot of friends, but not many matches, unlike Blackpool though I don't think they will get relegated, because although it's early days I think there are three worse teams in the premiership than Swansea. Home form is going to be the key, if the Swans can sort that out, then they should be OK. Not a wum, just calling it as I see it, I hope they survive, it's going to be tough, and they might need to spend a few quid but I think they can do it. They might have to compromise their principles slightly, last night they sometimes tried to play TOO much football at times, the Man City defence showed that sometimes just putting your foot straight through the ball is the right thing to do. Again not a WUM, just an honest appraisal, I think you can survive, and hope you do, you got chucked in at the deep end, and most of the more realistic Swans fans realise that anything outside the bottom three is going to be "success" in your first season..................unlike the QPR fans the Swans and Norwich fans realise it's going to be a long hard slog...............enjoy your roller coaster ride
Prophet - see the other 4 or 5 threads to see my response to your well reasoned comments (as they seem to be posted on the majority of threads here?). I agree with you by the way.
get a grip and look who we played last night and stopped them scoring for over 3/4 of the game. there wont be any premiership team this season that will beat man city on their own pitch ffs, there were some great positives that came out of last night and some points where a player is not good enough..for example even though tate done a good captains job he is weak at LB....little britton was shown up as to light weight and was rightly subbed in midfield, dobbie apart from the ambitious weak shot early in the first half was also out of his depth. all these can be rectified with ease sinclair and dyer showed some nice runs on the wing, our forwards were always going to find it hard up front against some of the best defenders in the world,...overall in a game that was the hardest opening game that we could have wished for the overall performance went as was predicted and any other premiership team were to play them would have suffered the same result......we will survive this season no problem, a few tweaks here and a few tweaks there and we will be fine....
Dai , who are you telling to get a grip? I think we all understand who we played last night , and no one is in anyway panicking. I for one am quietly confident for the season AFTER last nights performance. Just think we need a bit more options in the middle and more defensive cover. Not exactly panicking is it?
nice to see a reasonable response from a bluebird (as opposed to that pillock JH) which generally i agree with. it was always going to be hard and on the whole the boys did us proud always trying to play good football and not defending deep (the commentators on ESPN were impressed). my only criticism was that we could have got the ball a bit quicker up the pitch and that Leon and Augustien were over cautious on occasion, Dobbie and Graham looking very isolated. Wigan is going to be tough but i feel weve got enough in our team to get the result.
Ok Ivor agree with your post, but can I remind you it is only our first game, and we played a colossus of a team to start, so the picture is slightly distorted in my view. With regard to your criticism of our midfield, well yes they did seem to walk through it on times, and while I do not want to blame any player as it was a tough ask, you have to remember that Agustien has been thrown right in the deep end, from reserve football last season, and out on loan, the other issue is, and I may take some flack here from a few Jacks, but Leon was not at his best, he simply was not our terrier ball retriever last night, or for that matter the solid heel snapper we have been accustomed to, he was off loading the ball as soon as he got it as if it was a hot potato, and young Joe Allen showed in a few short minutes of his coming on how to get stuck in, so with Britton well below par in my view (maybe nerves) and Tate well out of his depth at this level, let alone at left back, it was always going to be a rough ride to see out this game, even Rangel was sloppy, with his defencive duties, miss kicking the ball into touch, on numerous occasions, our defence was adrift last night on numerous times, the reality of the Prem aye. It will take some time for our lads to adjust to this level, and Saturday at home to Wigan, is a good place to start, and I hope that Leon sorts his game out, as he was none existent last night. .............. please log in to view this image PS: Just like to say that Prophet is spot on, and that is how I see it, good post Prof!..................... please log in to view this image
Yes, Phil, I was mindful that it was our first game and who our opponents were. I feel our lads tried their best under difficult circumstances and did us proud. Being honest, I always felt that 0-4 was on the cards, hoped that at worst it would only be three and would have been quietly satisfied with a two goal deficit - always hoping, of course, that we might have nicked something from the game. Not to be. My fears, often stated on here, about our midfield, came back to haunt us. We all know that we came under the cosh far too often in the NPC so this was bound to be replicated to much greater effect in the PL. When teams press us, our passing becomes ragged, we lose possession and then our defence has to cope. Tatey is not PL quality and, imo, will have to settle for a permanent bench position this season. Rangel lacks pace and struggles with his positional play (great going forward) and our centre backs are still on a learning curve as a partnership. Not all doom and gloom though. We will get better. Kemy will improve with games and, hopefully, Buck will bring in some midfield quality. I do think that we have to get nastier as a team, stop showing the opposition so much respect and get stuck in more. As you say, Wigan is a good game to kick start our season and a solid win will do our confidence a world of good. But we must learn the lessons from games such as last night's. Despite a great effort our problems were graphically illustrated. We will get nowhere fast if they are not dealt with. Quickly.
The advantage, if it is an advantage, to playing a "top" team first is that we get to learn about the league early. Brendan, once he comes out of his shell shock, will now have a better idea of what`s required. He`s an intelligent chap and I`m sure that since Monday night he`s been evaluating what we did right and, more importantly, what we did wrong. Come Saturday we`ll see a different attitude I`m sure, and hopefully a different result.
Just pointing out that your two posts contradict each other. One says that If you were a betting man you would put money on the swans not surviving , and then a later post by you states that the swans will survive this season no problem. I thought my post was clear , but apologise if it wasn't clear enough to make "SENCE" to you , whatever the word "Sence" means...lol
could only watch the first 30 min cos i had to go to work, swans were good until about the 25th then city seemed to take over, vrom with the excellent save from silva, graham didnt seem he wanted to run, dobbie when he had the ball had noone to pass to unless back, back and more back, going back is fine but not from halfway inside their half. anyway, hard introduction to the prem, prob a good thing in a way, harden the guys up for the next battle. waiting for the weekend when i can watch the whole game live without this work rubbish
nottage let me explain to you what i mean.......If i was a big betting man that would risk say £5k then i would not put it on the swans to stay up, I would follow the most likely outcome that will give me the best chance of winning my bet..Now as i am not a big betting man then i would put a small amount on the best odds that would give me the best return and that is swans surviving the season...I hope you can now see what i am saying....
Phew , and you say I didn'y make sense! From your posts you clearly state 1)If you were a big betting man you would follow the most likely outcome as you see it. 2)if you were betting a small amount , then you would go for better odds as oppossed to most likely outcome. I understand that bit , but what I would like to point out is that you state A) "the most likely outcome" in your opinion is Swans not to survive AND B) You also state "swans will survive no problem" A&B are the contradiction as it is quite clear in your posts that "The most likely outcome" is not dependant upon how much money you are willing to risk. You post clearly gives the impression that the amount of money you are willing to risk only influences whether you are going to bet on most likely outcome or not.
the most likely outcome from every bookmaker IS that we are unlikely to stay up and any sensible betting man would agree, the pessimistic would go for the biggest odds with the odds heavily stacked against them and that is where i stand as im not going to bet with big money....... my risk is small should i lose....Its all to do with what you are willing to risk and like i say if i was to bet a huge amount then would go for the most likely outcome..
The argument isn't about what the bookies think is the most likely outcome , but what YOU think is the most likely outcome! It just doesn't stack up that if you had the "big money" to bet as you say , you would (by your own admission) put it on the swans NOT to survive as that is the most likely outcome , and then you go and say things like Summary: I think you contradict yourself. You obviously don't. Let's agree to disagree as I am bored with this now.Wish I had kept quiet lol
no it not if you are going to risk a huge amount of money then you listen to the bookies on what they think and every single one of them say we have not got much of a chance and are the favorites to go down....I am backing the swans to stay up with a small bet that i can afford to lose so i am not contradicting myself at all.....by the way you can get 11/4 that we wont win any of the first 6 matches. the bookies really dont fancy us at all this season so i hope to god they are wrong.....
I can see Nottage's point Dai, are you drunk or just being difficult!!................ please log in to view this image
