MONK & Team Selection?

Swansea are in crisis​

It wasn't all bad for Swansea, who did string a few nice moves together. Leon Britton looked like the Leon of old and should probably start the next run of games for that very reason. But questions remain about other squad selections. For the second game in a row, the enthusiastic Kyle Bartley replaced Argentinian international Federico Fernandez in the heart of defence. Fernandez appears to have been benched, but why? He has not been any more culpable for Swansea's poor performances than any other player.

Similarly, Franck Tabanou continues to exist only as a myth, a liminal figure spoken about in hushed whispers under the shadows of the Liberty stadium but never seen. Monk eloquently claimed that anyone who suggests any of his players aren't behind him is "a stupid person" but how can Tabanou be happy? How can Fernandez, an £8 million World Cup-caliber defender, be happy?

Reading between the lines, it seems that the players making up Monk's most recent starting line-ups are the ones who truly support him. The re-introduction of ageing former stalwart Britton and backup Wayne Routledge to the starting line-up, along with the unflinching loyalty shown to the mistake-prone Taylor, speaks quiet volumes about the constitution of Swansea's locker room cliques.

In times of poor form like the one Swansea have been endlessly enduring of late, a manager needs to be able to call on all his charges and use the right player for the right job, not the player he's better friends with. The more the pressure piles on Monk, the more he seems to turn to the old guard and those few players who remain from when Monk himself was a player.

Perhaps that in itself is a good enough reason to turn to a manager who actually doesn't know the club. The irony in Monk's appointment was that having hired from within, Swansea currently look less like Swansea than they have in a long time.

After Sunday's "hard luck" result, Monk will have bought himself time while actually achieving little. Swansea have won once and failed to score in seven of their last 11 games, leaving them just four points above the relegation zone. The crisis continues. - Max Hicks/ESPN


Valid Questions, and you can read the full article here, very good read indeed.

Link: http://www.espnfc.co.uk/club/swanse...continues-for-garry-monk-after-liverpool-loss

 

"Once the point of pride, their possession game looked out of sync. The formerly-crisp passes were replaced with half-assed efforts and lost challenges. Not sure what's happened. The talk was all about Monk's new-age training regimen and philosophies in preseason. Now he's entrenching himself in some really dire football as the pressure mounts. I think it's time for a change." - Shasta Hepworth



Max Hicks in response:

"I agree. He's not shown anything like enough pro-activity or savvy during this stretch. Reading about training field advances is one thing, but it has to translate to the pitch else what's the point."

 

Britton did a pretty good job Sunday , but more important to me , the rest of the team seemed to take comfort in his presence .
Routledge's insertion into the squad on Sunday had our entire right side causing headaches throughout the game and seemed to make an instant improvement to Naughton's game .
Unless Monk dabbles in these type of expierments between different players he will never know what he really has.
What I wouldn't do to see Tabanou play on the left with anyone , but you don't always get what you want so I'm happy to see the changes made the last few games and at least seen a glimpse of what games of past were like.
I truly think Monk has realized the errors of his ways and we will see a few changes every game from now.
Although we have a difficult schedule till the New Year , all teams below us have at least as difficult a schedule , with the exception of Villa so I believe we will stay out of relegation spots going into the New Year.

 

Hopefully, he will try Ayew up top on Saturday, with Routs and Monty out wide.

Fans would welcome the experiment - trying more of the (failed) same would really make us peed off...

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results....

6 points out of the last 30 on offer.....

 

Ayew would be a significant improvement on Go-miss, and Edder upfront, that much is very clear to all but Monk, he is so rigid and inflexible, even stupid, with his strategy and team selection, only his sacking can now redeem us........

 

Credit to Monk, but he got the decisions to play Leon, Routs and Bartley spot on imo. It's Ayew being played out of position and Taylor that's killing us.

 

Valley I don't think it matters who GM picks, his tactics are predictable and everyone knows it, he cant inspire the players and we seem unable to string two attacking passes together.

 

I thought the penny had finally dropped when he played Routledge on the right which meant an improved performance by Naughton who finally had some support something which some of us have been saying he's lacked all season.. So what did he do in the second half when we were one down? Took Routledge off put Montero on so we were back to square one.

 

I can see us being really tested by Leicester on Saturday, could be a very severe test, which may even see us get a right thumping, if that happens at home I do think it will be Monks Waterloo.............







But then if he pulls off a win against all the odds, then he will soldier on with Huw Jenkins blessing, highly unlikely though..........

 

As is his substitutions

 

This pissed me right off.

 

What a difference in two seasons, top 8 last season, relegation battle this season?

 

Monks Waterloo it is then!!!.........

 

all is not lost yet and survival still in our hands. Worrying starts around February next year and sounds like management change may happen very soon. The question is whether the players can dog it out with the other hard core regular relegation teams, like for example Sunderland.

 

I'd trade that ManU win for a loss for let's say a win against Norwich right about now.