I see that Laudrup admits Swansea are struggling after Spurs defeat? "We have to accept this is a very difficult moment for us," admitted Laudrup. "I think we have to look at ourselves and ask what is it we need - and we need a win," said the Dane, after Sunday's 3-1 loss to Spurs we face crucial games against fellow struggler's Fulham, West Ham, Cardiff and Stoke in February. However, Laudrup believes it is the damage to his team's confidence which is the biggest problem facing Swansea, and it is the one issue that has concerned me as we drop further into trouble. Laudrup finished with "We have to bounce back and win the game or maybe two games that will give that group confidence. "And the only way you can change that is by winning a game or two, and that's what we have to do. Easier said than done, especially when we are handicapped the way we are with Injuries, but two players, I wouldn't half love to see coming back ASAP is Dyer and Michu, we have nothing on the wing with Routledge, and we are missing a serious attacking midfielder of Michu's quality, shame that Ki is helping another team out of the mire, hope we learn the lessons on that one, though I seriously doubt it, one thing that has niggled me on this issue, and not just Jenkins mistake on the Transfer recall deadline, but the fact that reading between the lines, there doesn't seem to be good communication between Laudrup and Jenkins, whether this has also had a bearing on our season, we'll never know, but I have a sneaky feeling it has. Laudrup is now at a crossroads, but it would help if we could get some of the injured back, here's hoping that we get some good news soon on the injury front, I'm sure it will make the difference, and not only to our team confidence too!............... Jack Army reaction: Here is the reaction from fans on Facebook and Twitter after the match: TWITTER: KevinPossetswan Dismal....we haven't been on form for a year now...what's gone wrong highfivedave5 Need Dyer,Michu,Hernandez & DeGuzman back quick & new signings.Replacements not good enough for Premier.Poor running off the ball. jinky6 Players being brave, actually getting into the box, crossing and actually shooting or gambling off Bony KevinPossetswan We are rubbish...what it's going on in the training? Thankfully Laudrup leaving in the summer! owencolclough they're being pushed off the ball & giving away position way too easy, cmon Swans u can do much better chefo1983 I honestly think we will be fine! We need a few players back from Injury and a couple of wins & everyone will be happy again #jacks FACEBOOK: Craig Rees No passion in the team or manager need new players now!!and could do with new manager think he's taken us as far as he can!! In Huw Jenkins we believe!! Poor workrate off the ball. There's to many players out there who don't look interested, that goes for laudrop to. Message to huw Jenkins get it sorted and sign some players Steven Edwards Like a pack of cards folding.need to get rid of some players and bring in new.even laudrup is passed his sell by date Alun Jones Next 4 games are massive otherwise we could be in trouble Emma Phillips-Atkinson I have to say that we did lack passion today, but when shelvey went off that's meant that every one of our first choice starting 11 have been injured at some point this season and most are still out. It doesn't help when fans are leaving before the 70th minute. Stand by your team no matter what or bugger off and support someone else!
"and we need a win". I never had Laudrup down as a purveyor of the obvious. The slide continues unabated,and many who frequent this Forum are having a difficult time coming to terms with the reality of the situation. Excuses are very much the order of the day,viz,"injuries";"Europa Cup";"thieving referees",that's one of my favourites,and I wonder what it is that makes people post such statements. No one addresses the possibility that the team/squad simply aren't as good as many thought pre-season. Or the possibility that Laudrup is out of his depth. Look what Poyet and Pulis have done for their respective Clubs in a short space of time. They have provided a glimmer of hope,and well done to them for that. Sad to say,but Laudrup gives me no hope,and his,and Jenkins' handling of the Ki situation, bears me out somewhat. Apparently, The Swans' are still No.1 on the "possession" scale. Well,fat lot of good that does anymore,since opposition teams are no longer in awe of this statistic. We are now just THREE points off the bottom,and whilst some of the teams around us seem to be rising to the challenge,The Swans' continue to pass the ball back and fore, making little,or no orogress. The only saving grace is that there are a lot of teams in the relegation pot,and that may just save The Swans'. Should they survive, then a massive clear out is required for next season. Who wants more of the same next year?
I think after the bust up between Laudrup and Jenkins early season, it was always going to be a damage limitation season. Laudrup's lack of enthusiasm and his none existent motivational skills brought Jenkins out in the media to condemn the negative ethos that was emanating from manager and dressing room. Then recently we have some strange miss statements from both Laudrup and Jenkins on the Ki recall, with Laudrup drippy enough to leave it until Cannas got injured, and Jenkins then getting the deadline recall date wrong in the media, all this tells me that Manager and Boardroom are not pulling in the same direction, just hope that we can get through this season without too much further damage on the pitch!.............
Don't you think we should have had a penalty yesterday then? Doesn't it anger you as a supporter that the man was stood 5 yards behind the incident watching Bony being pushed over and he doesn't give it? Re: Poyet and Pulis They've got a couple of wins against teams in the bottom half...something we might be able to do in February. Force Poyet to play Man City, Man U away and Spurs with a team missing; Mannone, Ki, Cattermole, Adam Johnson, Fletcher and Borini...and Wes Brown in centre midfield. I wonder how he'd do. Perhaps he'd get 3 points by standing on the touchline screaming; "Don't let any goals in!", and "Score you ****ers! Score, score, score!!! ...and I bet that if one of his players is pushed over (dangerously) out of the air at a corner he wouldn't even mention it when interviewed afterwards? Laudrup has too much class to make excuses even though he and the players have had all the bad luck in the world of late. He keeps his cool and concentrates on what he and his players can do....which is exactly what the players need when there are so many excited Fanny's amongst the "support" heaping more pressure on an already difficult situation. I'll make you a bet. If we keep getting 60 % of the ball against the teams around us in February, with an in form Bony up front, and with important players returning from injury....we will get a good points haul in Feb and open up a cushion. Our confidence will return and we'll do enough to stay up...despite everything we have faced (and with the smallest budget in the Prem). I certainly won't forget this time though, you learn about people.
The bottom line is we need a minimum of 7 points from the next 4 games. I would even let that lot up the road have a win if we could win the other three games!
You are missing the point with regards Poyet and Pulis. Sunderland and Palace looked dead and buried before their respective arrivals,and many asked the question,"Who will join them in The Championship next season",i.e.only one place left. Well,not many asking that question now,since the the bottom half of the Table has been dramatically altered. Poyet and Pulis have done that,not Laudrup. So whilst those two were urging their players on,Laudrup sits on his derrierre,saying little,gesticulating even less,safe in the knowledge that some supporters will find an endless stream of excuses,thereby avoiding him having to do so. "All the bad luck in the world of late". Oh dear,I missed that one in my list. "Despite everything we have faced(and with the smallest budget in the Prem)". I missed those as well. So Swansea are the only team to suffer from "bad luck",etc., then? It's not fair,is it,we have the lions share of both possession and bad luck,and there are no points allocated for either categories. Things can change,of course,even over the next four/five games. It remains to be seen whether "we will get a good points haul in February",and in so doing "we'll do enough to stay up". Hopefully,we will. "I certainly won't forget this time though,you learn about people". ??? Can't help but think that's a dig at me. Perhaps you could clarify that rather mysterious statement. The bottom line is,football is really only a game,and pales into insignificance when compared with tragedies that befall millions of people world wide on a day to day basis,and my reaction to another home defeat is tempered by such knowledge.
While I agree we are struggling I still look back at the last 8 fixtures and honestly say I wasn't expecting points from 5 of the games as they were against top 6 opposition. let's be honest we probably hadn't earmarked more than 3 points out of those 5 games and then we'd be hoping for an upset. So I'm not too downheartened on those. The other three were disappointing especially the Villa game where we dominated but couldn't hit a barn door. As has been said the next four games are crunch matches and we need to get at least 7 points from them and I'd aim at least for 10. Keep the faith though. I still firmly believe there are three worse teams than us in the league but we do need to strengthen in the short term and get rid of the crap (Lamah especially) in the summer.
Unfazed whatsoever ! Playing ok football despite ( sorry vetch ) injuries , amount of games , and the quality of the teams played. Better get all the whinging out of your system peoples , because we re finished our very , very difficult patch and points will flow starting in 9 days .
You used to be a Social Worker didn't you Lib? Imagine you are in charge of a team in a high pressure environment....let's say you are the Team Leader in Child and Family Team. You have 500 cases which all have to be assessed and 200 of them are going to court. You have 15 Social Workers working under you, only 10 of which are capable of seeing the court cases through, the other 5 are a mixture of support workers and young Social Workers on their first job who will need their hand held through this for a while. 10 competent staff take 10 court cases and 30 Child in Need cases each = 400 The remaining 100 cases are divvied up between the remaining 5 workers. Now you lose 5 competent staff and 2 support workers through illness/maternity leave etc. What does that do to your numbers Lib? Do you think you'd be able to maintain performance levels across all the cases? Imagine you have a boss screaming blue bloody murder at you because your team is behind on a lot of the court cases and there could be grave consequences for the department....comparing you unfavourably to your equal in Cardiff Social services who has nearly double the budget and is only missing 1 or 2 workers...telling you all you need to do is encourage your remaining staff a bit better...shout a bit more, throw a few extra tea cups. Laudrup is in the equivalent position in football terms Lib, and you are the boss screaming blue bloody murder. Do you think you're being reasonable? Now get your head around that despite all these troubles, so far after 22 games, Laudrup has outperformed 5 of his peers...at least 4 of whom have bigger budgets and all have more staff available....and on top of this has steered us through the Europa Cup and a 3rd round F.A. Cup tie with Man Utd. I'm having a dig at anyone who calls themselves a Swansea City supporter yet starts throwing **** at the wall when things don't go our way. Yes, injuries are largely about bad luck Lib. Yes, we don't get a suspiciously large amount of perfectly good penalty appeals. Yes, we have a smaller budget than all but 1 of our rivals (Crystal Palace might be outspending us actually for all I know) No, shouting at people won't make a blind bit of difference to the performance...all it does is add pressure....which is why it is club policy not to have shouting from the touchline at the kids games. We are practicing what we preach.
Im with Terror, its not all that bad. Someone even brought up yesterday that in the last 38 games (equivalent to a season) we have picked up 37 points. I am not 100% sure on how accurate that is, but even if it is, it is interesting to know that the last team to get relegated on 37 points + was, Blackpool and Birmingham 2 seasons ago, and prior to that was Sheffield United in 2006, then West Ham with 42 points in 2003. So in the last 10 seasons, a total of 30 teams have gone down, yet only 4 have got 37 points or above. So history is on our side right now, so is there really any need to panic, I personally don't think so. Also we have had injuries to key players (as mentioned by terror), but even the best teams struggle with key injuries, just look at united after losing RVP and Rooney. So why do some of our fans think that little old swansea should be coping better? You only have to look at some of the bigger clubs, Man City without Kompany have struggled before, United without Vidic, Liverpool without Suarez/Gerrard at times. Granted Sturridge came in and filled the void this year, but I am not on about just now. Not to mention Newcastle of last season, or Fulham the time before, with their Europa cup runs too. People claim that injuries are just an excuse, but you only have to look at other clubs to realise just how poor a statement that actually is. Injuries do more to a team than cause it to miss just 1 player. Especially when it is a key player. It not only brings in a player, that is maybe not match fit, but in dire situations like ours, it causes a reshuffle, and players playing out of position, for example Amat, and you could see yesterday that no matter how hard he tried, he was not able to perform in that role like a genuine midfielder, so no wonder we struggle as a team. The problem is that there are some fans who seem intent on blaming it on the manager, or the players, and getting on their backs, do they really believe what they are doing is of any benefit to the team at all? You only have to look at Pablo last season to notice how bad it can effect a player when he is jeered, he looked short of confidence, he made more mistakes, but what I liked about him, he never gave up. If I had my way, those who criticise yet fail to accept the reality of our situation, should be removed from the stadium, as it does nothing but harm our teams confidence, we are fans, its also up to us, not just the management and players to build their confidence. Not harm it more than it already is. But like others, I am positive we will be just fine, key players returning, all but 4 of the big teams out of the way, I refuse to be narrow minded in how we have performed this season, and last for that matter. So I will happily find the excuses as to why we haven't been up to scratch, such as playing the likes of last seasons top 8 teams (those who finished above us), which in the course of a season, we would only play 16 games, yet we managed to play them 18 times, so there is our missing few points to make the 40 points mark. Nor to mention that this season, of our home games, (11) we have already played, Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle, Everton, Man City, Spurs (Sunderland, West Ham, Stoke, Hull) So 7 of the current top 8 have been our home games, which left 4 home games against the bottom 12 clubs (11 not including us). Add in our European exploits, and a picture can be easily made out to why we are in our current predicament. So that means our first half fixtures were rather unkind, in that of our 22 games, 7/11 of our home games, were against teams we usually write off as losses anyway (current top 8 teams), and our away games against the lower clubs around our level, are usually games we would pen up as an away draw, with the odd win, we haven't had the luxury of a run of home games against the lower teams, which are the ones we pen as wins. If you were to look at the final 16 games of the bottom 11 clubs, and added up the positions of the teams they were playing, who do you reckon would have the easier run in on paper? (Highest points total = easier run in) Southampton = 165 Hull = 180 Aston Villa = 176 Norwich = 165 Stoke = 160 West Brom = 173 Swansea = 181 Palace = 164 Fulham = 155 West Ham = 147 Sunderland = 155 Cardiff = 169 Well that paints a picture doesn't it, top of the pile. 34 positions difference between us and the lowest West Ham. 26 from the likes of Sunderland and Fulham. Not to mention that of our remaining games, we play Everton (a) Newcastle (a) Arsenal (a) Liverpool (a) so 4 of the top 8 away from home, so already points we have cast aside so to speak. If some of you guys are really worried about how we are doing, then carry on, but I will continue to look at the bigger picture. There is more to look at than our last 8 games.
I don't know if you have noticed Lib but Laudrup has not looked for excuses and sat calmly on the touchline during 90 mins ever since he arrived here. That's who he is. He most certainly doesn't behave in a way that has taken into account that some supporters will make excuses for him. What an utterly ridiculous thing to imply. As I understand it you have been watching the Swans a lot longer than I have and during that time seen only 1 major trophy delivered by any manager of our club....a manager who is a class act as a man, regardless of playing or managing ability.... he gets half of the first team, and a couple of competent substitutes, injured in the middle of a busy schedule that takes in some of the best and richest clubs in the World game and this is how you and others repay the man. That's what I was talking about re: finding out about people.
Totally agree with Laudrup the gentleman and by no means do i think we need to replace him,BUT why didnt we go 4-4-2 yesterday.Playing amat in midfield to me is nonsence,why didnt he try young Donnelly up top with Bony?I say Donnelly because i dont rate vasquez along with a few more(Lamah at fault for second goal) so why?
That's a much better argument than "why didn't he shout at them and wave his arms around in the air"! Only Laudrup knows. I would argue (as I did on the match thread pre game) that Tottenham are a very good side and our best chance would be to keep the ball better than them. 4-5-1 vs their probable 4-4-2 made perfect sense pre game. They lined up 4-4-1-1 but there was no need to tinker as we were on top, keeping possession and creating opportunities. Second half Shelvey gets injured, we lose our shape and they score a second. That would have been a good time to go 2 up top....but having watched yet another player limp off perhaps he thought - no more subs, and risk getting anyone else injured...let's concentrate on getting/keeping as many fit as possible for the coming run of very important games . Only Laudrup knows why though. I for one would have been happy to see Donnelly come on, as we won't need him to remain fit anyway...but let's not kid ourselves, that's not why we lost to a very good Tottenham team and it's most probable that Laudrup is right and he's not ready for Prem football.
Just to put this game into a little bit of perspective, only three teams have taken anything from Spurs away from White Hart Lane this season. City humiliated us 6-0, our scummy neighbours nicked a 1-0 win and we drew 0-0 with Everton. We've won the other eight fixtures. No team has picked up more points on the road or won more games, with only Arsenal doing slightly better by way of superior goal difference. You're clearly a better side than a lot of those around you in the table, but your Europa League campaign has drained your squad. A couple of loan deals in this window wouldn't go amiss, but you should still have the quality to progress in the cups and stay up, in my opinion.
