Chelsea fan in peace. First off congratulations for having kept the most clean sheets in the league, that is commendable for a newly promoted team. I always thought the Welsh factor and atmosphere Swans fans generate would play a part and teams would not like to go there. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a live Swansea game yet (not including the City game) so cannot properly analyse your side, My housemate is a Wolves fan so I will be watching the game with him. I was just wondering if you could point to reasons why your away form has been poor in contrast to your home form? Psychological? Formation? Tactics? Thanks in advance.
I think most teams believe they can control a game better at home. Our game is based around controlling possession and restricting other teams opportunities. We've shown we can do that at home, but away from home, it's a harder task. Especially considering we've already played Man City, Chelsea, and Arsenal away (and only a rare blunder from Vorm cost us a draw there), I'd say the Norwich game was surprising in that we were so off colour. I don't think it's going to be long before we're picking up points on the road, but I think instead of trying to maintain control over possession, away from home we'll end up playing on the counter, using the pace of Dyer, Sinclair, Routledge, Lita etc to soak up pressure before breaking. That's my tuppence worth anyway. Maybe we'll try and rough it up a bit away, I don't know, but, while we can mix it when needed, it's more in our nature to knock the ball around a bit.
I think that we need to be more physically robust away from home and in that regard we're missing Kemy Agustien who's injured. Built like a tank and with an eye for a pass he is a huge miss. There is no way he would have got muscled off the ball on Saturday. Not sure how long he's out. Another couple of weeks I think. Defensively, Caulker is another huge loss for us. Again out for a while yet. His stand-in, Gary Monk tends to be a lot more confident at home and has put in some decent performances to be fair. But away he's been shocking, though the rest of the defence are hardly blameless. No coincidence then that our away results have also been poor. I agree that it's a matter of time before we pick up points on the road, hopefully starting Saturday. Scottswan may be right that we probably need to change our tippy tappy possession football a little away from home and rely more on counter-attacks. We certainly have the pace to do it.
Don't forget we are missing caulker at the back as well, he should be back probably at the start of December I think. And Moras may prove a good acquisition as well.
I agree, you have had a harsh start, Norwich also are a brilliant home team. Perhaps after the Wolves game a better assessment can be made.
I think the problem is simple really we have been found out for being to light weight with players not good enough when asked to play through injuries to first teams. this is something we must address in January. ...Also like i have mentioned before......our manager who is brilliant by the way and certain players must stop these comments in the media that some games will be easier than others, I cringe when i hear these comments as i have always believed that we should never ever think that and treat every game as if we were playing man city away....
comment above re lightweight players, curiousity got me, do the players do any weights/strength training, as Aussie will attest even the shortest AFL player do the weights and bulk up and it doesnt affect their speed ( yes i know, diff game but?)
Allen has been working developing upper body strength and to be fair it shows, Musty. So has Dobbie but that doesn't show as we tend not to see him that often!
Do we have the record of most clean sheets in the league? Thats pretty poor isn't it? I mean from everyone else. only 4 out of 8
all at home though Rhys1 .... we are talking about our away form and the way we leak goals that counteract our home clean sheets to the extent that we are in he minus zone.....this must be addressed urgently if we want to stay in the premiership.....
