Michael Laudrup hates set pieces. There was an undisguised contempt in the Dane's post-match interview as he recounted Steven Caulker's match-winning goal, scored from a corner, the only strike in Cardiff's 1-0 win on Sunday. In a dead-ball situation, team formation and shape no longer count. The set-piece is a temporary suspension of the finer tactical elements of the game, a crap-shoot which can undo a hour's worth of chess moves at a stroke. So it is easy to understand Laudrup's annoyance at losing his first South Wales derby from a set piece, despite Cardiff's obvious set-piece strength. It is less easy to understand Laudrup's tactical approach to what was, derby hysteria aside, a match Swansea were capable of winning. Laudrup's choice to bench Wilfried Bony, start Michu as striker, and play Jonjo Shelvey in front of the midfield signaled the Swans manager was feeling the pressure. With all due respect to Cardiff, it is as though Laudrup's belief that Sunday's game was going to be difficult became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe Swansea are the superior side. The Premier League represents British football's steepest learning curve, and teams that survive that curve progress at an accelerated rate. You might expect the Swansea side of three years ago, then as new to the top flight as Cardiff are now, to have made an even match on Sunday. This Swansea side has three years of Premier League seasoning on that squad and should have taken Sunday's game in stride, derby or not. Here's a question to illustrate my point. Will Swansea make similar adjustments when they meet Hull? Like Cardiff, Hull are newly promoted. Both sides play pragmatic, defensive football. In fact, Hull are faring better than Cardiff in the league this year. My guess is no, Swansea will not make those adjustments. Swansea will play Hull the way Swansea play, because it is their best chance at getting a result. Laudrup's idea on Sunday would have been reasonable against a stronger opponent; play a midfield-focused starting XI, hold the game in neutral, then "go for the game" late. The plan was to introduce Bony for the last half-hour, in place of a midfielder. Instead, Michu sprained an ankle, Bony had to replace the Spaniard directly, and Laudrup's plan was undone, not least because all this happened after the goal. Why not "go for the game" right from the start? And why play a defensive line-up in the first place? To contain the threat of a side which has scored all of five open-play goals in nine games this season? Under the glare of the occasion, Laudrup over-managed and in so doing undermined his side's strengths. Cardiff manager Malky MacKay had his boys play the same game they've been playing all season, whether out of confidence or merely a lack of other options. Throw in a solid performance from Gary Medel and consider that no single Swansea player exhibited even half the desire of Craig Bellamy, and the result starts to make sense. This is what happens when teams play not to lose. They either get lucky, or they lose. Swansea in full swing could have won this match. With a little more confidence and, dare I say, a little less regard for Cardiff, Swansea might have started Michu behind Bony, gone for the throat early and often, and forced Cardiff to contain a top-10 Premier League side. If Laudrup really wanted to throw MacKay a tactical curveball before kickoff, he might have considered this: bench Michu. If Laudrup had to play Shelvey in the hole, Bony would have been the better option as striker. Truth is, Michu isn't that good at striker. Nor does he enjoy it. Bony, on the other hand, has trained his entire professional career in the position, and I doubt very much if Cardiff's defence are any better than many of the Dutch sides Bony tore apart last season. Laudrup could then have introduced Michu as the second-half sub, when the Spaniard's desire and energy might have exploited a tiring, rain-sodden Cardiff defence. Bony is not an impact sub, and has a pricetag which says he should be starting. He is the kind of player who needs whole games. He might be quiet for 85 minutes, but if in the other five he finds a goal or two, who's complaining? The unresolved and disruptive tension in Swansea's front line needs to be settled definitively. Bony needs to start, always, with Michu in behind. New shoes don't get broken in unless you wear them. At least the fallout from derby games is always good. A win provides confidence, and a loss, as in this case, provides motivation to do a lot better. The fans are very much expecting it. I Just thought he made so much sense!....................
I have never understood why we never take the height of the player when we are looking to recruit a position that requires height. The midfield is a position where your height does not matter but speed does. defenders and the keeper do need to be tall for set pieces and the striker needs strength and pace. we have always been a smallish club with the size of our players but martinez solved that by bringing in our short sharp fast triangle passing and teams just could not get the ball off us. we had trundle,scotland who were more on target than not and they had good service to score the goals, the only player who is a trunds and jase is michu but the rest have lost that fluent passing game and now teams are beating us with set pieces that we know are a nightmare against smallish players that we have. Look at the way caulker rose way above our players to score a fantastic goal. ....On caulker im baffled why we never went for him as he is the type of defender we need...
I was well pissed off when he signed for Cardiff. Would happily sell Ash and Chico to have him in the heart of our defence
The problem with the analysis is that it ignores over 60% possession in the first half plus shot dominance, with Cardiff playing 6 across the back. If Bony had been there in the first half he would have just been a more static body in the way. Cardiff unashamedly parked the bus at home. We could have been tactically sharper perhaps, but think back a couple of seasons with Chelsea pulling the same stunt against Barca. It is tough to break down, burrow through, tunnel under, climb over .... In the second half Cardiff adjusted, closed us down much higher, worked hard. We didn't pick up the tempo as we should. The goal was the first set piece we have conceded this season in part due to Shelvey not focusing on his role in the system. A momentary lack of discipline cost us; except that it wasn't just that corner, because Vorm was screaming at them all in the first half to "play the ****ing system" when Britton and Shelvey in particular were dashing around like chickens without a head instead of assuming their role at the posts. Discipline! Bony didn't start for a reason, not necessarily my quip above, but now we learn that the guy is on a "special" remedial program 10 weeks into the season. Something is not right there; seriously not right. By now any lag in fitness because of his interrupted preseason should have been made up ... shouldn't it. Perhaps not, but it seems strange to me.
parking the bus is nonsense and just an old excuse fans use when the cant score. Its a cleshay that is used far to much and the real reasons are that we were crap or the goalkeeper was superb or the defenders did a good job...There is no such thing as parking the bus it dont make sense for a start. how do you park the bus...
Fair enough, Yankee but we failed to score with our 60% possession and didn't trouble their keeper, which might have been a factor for our half-hearted performance in the second half. Bony is always a threat and ruffles defences. As was stated, he is a trained striker, needs game time and is hungry for more goals. Max writes a terrific blog and usually nails the essence. I'm not a Cardiff basher but he is absolutely correct when he implies that we paid them far too much respect with our line up. Bony should have started with Michu coming from deep, his favourite position, to notch the same type of goals he has scored against far better defences than theirs - and we badly needed his industry in midfield. Norwich managed 31 strikes at goal because they went for it and kept going for it. We didn't so we lost, despite being, in my opinion, a better team than them.
The term "parking the bus" is not a cliche. It refers to variations on the theme of the first tried Italian catenaccio that requires players when defending to occupy a narrow band across the top of the penalty box. The objective being to deny the attacking team the space through which to run, or carry or pass the ball. It is literally intended to suffocate an attack. It is not intended to win posession back, but to force the attackers to lose possesion by trying ever riskier ways to breech the defense. It requires great technique and patience to penetrate. From my perspective, there are only two effective tactics against this. The first is to break forward at speed when possession is gained in a deep position before the defenders can establish their defense. The second tactic, once the defense is established, is to use width, get down to the bye-line and whip over crosses, not necessarily at a player, but more at a zone that one or more attackers should be attacking. This leverages the advantage gained over the defenders when they have been turned and facing their own goal. In practice there are so many bodies in the box that a more useful tactic could be just driving the ball through the six yard box from the bye-line looking for a riccochet but I've rarely seen this done. Of course, this requires wingers that are actually wingers in the true sense and have the ability to cross the ball ... and players willing to put their head on the ball and get banged or bang defenders in the process. It's a tactic adopted by teams that have a significant disadvantage over their opponents. It depends more on discipline than skill. Teams playing a man down naturally adopt something along these lines whether they aware of what they are doing or not. Parking the bus is not a "cleshay", nor a figment of imagination, nor an excuse of supporters, but a bona fide tactic of last resort of teams too scared to do anything else.
There seems to be two ways to play us: applying pressure high up the field (Cardiff second half); and deep defensive walls (Cardiff first half). I'm not going to use the term "parking the bus" as Dai doesn't get it, but the Cardiff Catenaccio was effective and even with Bony present I am not sure we would have worked a way around or through it. Could Bony have made a difference - possibly, but having heard about this special program he's on, I'm frankly confused. I'd like to hear what's being discussed behind the scenes and what the real problem is. Our first half, barring a goal, couldn't have gone better in terms of the basic statistics considering what they were trying to breech. We owned the park for most of the period. In the second half the cheese fell off our cracker so to speak, and we didn't play as we believe we are our should be capable of doing. It's bitterly disappointing and frustrating. If ML's experience counts for anything, he must have played against this before and he is going to have to craft some way for these players to break that type of defensive system down. The sooner the better or we will be seeing a lot of draws or squeaky victories or frustrating losses. We are going to be seeing this defensive system more and more. When you run into it playing away you know you're a threat. Perhaps the solution is just to sit back and move the ball around the half way line until the home fans start throwing a fit and the home team breaks discipline and tries to be more offensive individually. If they are more offensive as a team then we can get a second half like we had against Cardiff This week is going to be physically demanding. If Bony has physical issues it's going to be a huge test for him. Thankfully Ben looks like he can play again sooner than expected. I'm glad for that because although Neil has been OK, I think we miss something without Ben offensively, just as we miss Rangel.
Agree with the OP. Good analysis. Cardiff certainly weren't parking the bus second half. They were the more attacking team.
Come on, Aber, Yankee took a lot of time and trouble with his post. Disagree by all means but at least give him the respect of stating why. How are you doing these days?
yankee of course its full of crap, cardiff defended quite well and the chances we had we never put them away, Its as clear cut as that. there is no such thing as parking the bus other than a saying people use as an excuse when their team fail to score..
Yankee uses the term 'Park the bus' correctly' and if any of you check the video footage of the game, time after time Cardiff put 10 men behind the ball and packed their own box when we attacked them, and that is parking the bus in front of goal with out doubt, for Dai to say there is no such thing, is wrong, because this term has been used for such negative tactics by weaker oppositions for decades. To Park the bus in association football refers to a defensive style of play whereby a team attempt to restrict the opposition by playing many players behind the ball with limited or no attacking play. Such a style of play is known for making it very difficult for the opposition to score. The term can be considered pejorative and has negative connotations of being a boring and unattractive style of play, however effective it may be. One example of this style of play is the Greek campaign in UEFA Euro 2004, in which they won whilst scoring an average of 1.17 goals per game, the lowest average in the tournament's history. Many sources cite then Chelsea manager José Mourinho as the first to coin the phrase in English, in reference to a Tottenham side that played very defensively at Stamford Bridge in a 2004–05 FA Premier League match against Chelsea. Disappointed at Spurs' tactics, he was quoted as saying: "As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal. I would have been frustrated if I had been a supporter who paid £50 to watch this game because Spurs came to defend. There was only one team looking to win, they only came not to concede - it's not fair for the football we played". . José Mourinho himself had used this phrase while coaching in Portugal before moving to England in 2004. As I said earlier Dai is way off on this and completely wrong, and I'm sure I'll listen to José Mourinho before Dai any time of the day, Yankee is 100% correct in his analysis, as for aber, well does he understand the game, if he did he would have offered more than what he did? It's a problem that we need to find a solution too, because it's part of the problem of our lack of cutting edge, as more and more teams are getting boddies back to flood their own box, sad but true!.................
