Hi All Iâve recently started a blog using the Opta stats for the Swans from the Guardian website. Thereâs a huge amount of information available around passes/tackles/shots etc., who makes them and where on the pitch it happens and Iâve tried to use these to add a bit more insight to how weâre performing. Blog is at http://wearepremierleague.com Twitter @we_r_pl http://www.twitter.com/we_r_pl Any comments appreciated.
Review of the Norwich game now available at http://wearepremierleague.com Twitter @we_r_pl http://www.twitter.com/we_r_pl Was impressed with Graham on Saturday, felt he made a lot of good runs off the ball and worked really hard (possibly coming deep too often). Thought Morison was excellent especially in the first half. Norwich weren't incredible but they never really needed to be and I can see them doing enough to be safe.
Good link. You should post these up after every game, DB. Very interesting. "Dobbie (along with Sinclair) had the highest number of attempts with 3 despite only playing 30 minutes, although two of these efforts came within seconds of each other and were fairly tame affairs." And 15 of those 30 he was hobbling around incapable of playing so really it's 15 mins. I rest my case. If we want to win away we have to score - simple. Whereas I'm all for possession football and sometimes having to back to go forward it's pointless passing back and forth in little triangles if you're not hurting the opposition, particularly when you're behind. You have to have a crack at goal. Dobbie does that and the stats seem to prove it. OK, so some were tame efforts but at least he tried to have a pop. Looks like hardly anyone else did!
I think that most people who follow the PL now realise that most of our passing game is powder puff stuff, conducted in areas that don't hurt the opposition and is designed to blunt them rather than hurt them. Lambert read us like an open book. Other managers will as well and better teams than Norwich will rip us apart. I don't want to see us revert to route one, we are not equipped to play that anyway, but 300 passes per game in our own half will get us to hell in a handcart pretty quickly if it isn't sorted out. Our build up play is so measured, so painfully slow, that teams have all the time in the world to get organised and defend against it. Couple that with a midfield that is going to be muscled out of games then add a defence that just can't cope away from home and the problems will mount up. That we need better defenders and a tougher attitude to ball winning is obvious but, in addition to that, we need to do what we are doing football-wise but do it a whole lot quicker than we are. All easier said than done. Hopefully the return of Caulker and Kemy will help and the addition of Moras will give us height. The ingredients are there but Buck has to get the mix right. I'm sure he will.
The thing is Ivor we play the way we play, and that is no bad thing, arsenal play in a similar way and are good at it are successful, we just need to be more clinical and not be frightened by clubs when we play them away. What I don't want is for us to abandon our principles because of a loss. Clubs can study us all they want, we have proved we can live with most teams , and the results will come. There are worse teams in this division than us, and we just need to be ahead of them to stay up.
Agree, Jager. There are certainly worse teams than us but I have to confess that the nature of the Norwich defeat shook me. I would never want us to compromise our footballing principles but there are times when it doesn't work and I don't see us being flexible enough to adapt within that discipline. Call it a "Plan B" if you like. How often did we accuse both Martinez and Sousa of having nothing left in the tactical locker when things weren't going well for us? To be honest, I see signs of this with Buck. We finished the first half in the ascendancy against Norwich, expected to kick on and get a point or better in the second half. What happened? They came out and gave us a drubbing. Lambert had obviously learned far more from the first half than Rodgers and he did something about it. Not impressed at all - with manager or players. Norwich is a team that we would expect to compete with. Apart from a period in the first half, we did no such thing and it is disturbing. No disrespect to them but there are far better teams we have to face and any repeat of that sort of performance will spell trouble. We have to do what we do with far more urgency and bite. We have to make teams work and earn any success they have against us. January window? What bothers me is that, if we are adrift come that time, will any decent players fancy coming to us if they know they will be in a relegation scrap? I think not; particularly given our wage policy (which I agree with) which will see their wages cut if we are relegated. I fancy that an NPC promotion chasing club might seem a more attractive proposition to them let alone another PL club. We do need to stay in touch in this division and the team has to realise that we need goals to survive and not endless tippy-tappy stuff in our own half.
The passing game is fine if all the players are good at it, but due to injuries and a few new players our passing game is not as good as we are use too, also it is easy to play against if the opposition close us down and stop us getting anywhere near forward enough which some teams have done against us. I would like to see some variety in our style just to keep the opposition guessing, especially away from home......this is a big factor as teams know exactly how we are going to play them well in advance and they are well prepared for us. At home it works better because every player knows every inch of the pitch and knows where their team mates are most of the time but when we are away its not as simple and don't work as well. just like Martinez who was a one system manager who in the end lost or drew towards the end of his time with us as his system did not work anymore, ....I am starting to see similar statistics with Brendan. you know when he is going to put on the subs and most of the time it will be to late to do anything about it, he keeps taking off players who are playing well and putting on extra forwards......This is my only gripe i do have with Brendan and his style of play.....i love the guy and I'm sure he will get things right....
It does show that we don't like to pass directly behind the wing backs despite the speedsters we have on the flanks. They all know Sinclair/Dyer will run at them but will not be played behind them. Great to see the OPTA stats, but be sure, every manager in the Prem also sees these and we need to be able to change it up sometimes to keep teams honest. PS good thread mate.. keep it up
Interesting stats as usual. It just shows the great defensive effort that Norwich put in. If we're going to model off Barcelona, we have to realise (and I know that Brendan will know this as he eats and sleeps Barcelona) that while they have many technically gifted players who can keep the ball brilliantly, Barca's main strength lies in their ability to win the ball back so quickly. You never see Barcelona drop off a team and gift them a free run into their half, they defend from the front and this keeps the opponents on the back foot even when they've got possession. Yes, we can pass the ball around well - but from memory (and this would need some research to prove), Barcelona launch many of their attacks after winning the ball back in opposition territory. This is the area that we need to improve in my opinion. If we win the ball in opposition territory more often, it naturally forces that team to sit deeper. Norwich made it very difficult for us by pressing us high up the pitch and getting in amongst our players, making it a lot harder for us to find our passes and meant that we had to play 'through' them even within our own half. In that respect, it was actually Norwich playing the most like Barcelona on Saturday. We should have countered their high intensity defence with high intensity defence of our own! Every time Ruddy had the ball, we should have pushed our wingers onto their full backs, and our full backs onto their wingers (almost like a man-for-man marking system) - but it relies on trusting that everyone sticks with their man for a short amount of time. This, in theory, would have pushed Norwich deeper into their own half and would have given us more opportunity to win the ball back in their half - which is the best kind of possession to score off. Additionally, it would have meant that Norwich wouldn't have been able to contain our possession as much and we would have looked a more purposeful team. Of course, I do realise that long balls to the corners would have countered my plan above, but Norwich aren't the type of side to pump balls forward like that. Finally, on the Dobbie debate. Despite Dobbie having 3 shots, how the hell didn't he score from Graham's cut back? My workmate from Reading said himself that Dobbie should have buried that, and last season he probably would have easily. He seemed to poke at it, when a slotted side-footed finish (similar to Wembley) is more his style. He's looked sharp in reserve team action, but can't seem to make it happen for him on the Premier League pitches it seems! I hope he finds his feet soon, because we're going to need to need him to pull us out of a few holes like he did last season I'm sure!
BigK. Playing in the reserves is one thing. The guy needs game time in the first team to get sharper and he's not getting it. We shouldn't be overly critical when we as a team hardly troubled their keeper all afternoon. Rodgers has switched from having complete faith in Dobbie to practically worshipping the ground Routledge walks on (he is his signing and I suspect favouritism) and I maintain that the latter will not deliver goals for this Club. 110 games with 0 return supports that assertion. Routledge has his place imo - on the bench to come on late-ish in the game and run at defenders with tired legs. But it's Dobbie who will give us what we need to win - and that's goals. Just my opinion. [ Edit: Just seen that Dobbie is out for a couple of weeks ]
I agree that he needs more first team action to get his general play back up to scratch. But a chance is a chance - whether you're playing for Swansea, Swansea reserves, or Newport reserves. If there's one thing about his game that he's always had, it's clinical finishing. So it's worrying that he didn't take his chance against Norwich, especially as the chance was so clear cut. HOWEVER, I'm a huge Dobbie fan. But I'm not as bitter as some on his lack of game time right now. There's no doubt in my mind that Dobbie will get a run in the team at some point this season and I'm sure he's going to play a big part this season, and score some great goals along the way. Routledge, while not doing much wrong up until now, is running out of time to stake a concrete claim that he has a right to be picked for the first team - I feel that we're about 2/3 games away from seeing Routledge dropped unless he can put in a couple of stellar performances in that time.
I think there are a lot of Dobbie fans out there (of which I'm one). It must have been a bit of a downer for Routledge to hear the cheers when he was subbed for Dobbie (wasn't a criticism of his performance just that people in general are more exited by Dobbie than him). When he came on I felt that Dobbie was trying too hard, probably as he knew (before his injury) that he might not play, and certainly wouldn't start for a few weeks unless he did something special. If he's out injured for the next two games, it could easily be December before he's back actually on the pitch in the Premier League apart from 10 minute cameos here and there.
Swimaway made a good point about the service to our wide men - I would say that because I've been puzzled about it for some time. Invariably, Sinclair and more so Dyer, drop deep to receive the ball in FRONT of their respective full backs. This means that they have to get past or play through them to advance the move. Now I know that this is a deliberate part of our build up play in that the move is calculated to allow supporting players to get up and become involved. This is fine but it does slow us down and means that Sinclair/Dyer have to beat their markers, one way or another, to progress the move. I have often fretted that we don't play the ball in BEHIND the full backs more often so as to turn the move into an out and out footrace between our flyers and their markers. Sinclair and Dyer are very quick but I don't see the best use being made of their blistering pace - and pace frightens defenders to death. Further, it keeps the defender in two minds. Does he go tight to man mark and risk being left for dead if the ball is lofted long down the flanks, or stay back to cover this? Usually he will opt for a "halfway house" position which means that our wingers get more time on the ball when they receive it and would have the space to run at the defence. Two things to bear in mind here. Dyer and Sinclair being so fast could, in rugby terms, isolate themselves because our supporting players lack the necessary pace to go with them. Secondly, any pass designed to take out the full back without it being gobbled up by a covering defender would have to be pin point accurate. I'm not sure that we have that sort of skill in the team. Now, if Bodde was playing........ Just a few thoughts and I wonder what you guys think? Oh and compliments to DBJ for a thought provoking thread.
