What's tiresome is the general need to genuflect every time some "big" name club comes into town and regardless of how we play we must be so incredibly ****ing grateful that we scraped a draw from a match we were strong enough to win had we played 90 minutes and not dropped below 50% of our best and lost our shape as we did for part of that second half yesterday. Big clubs' fans get pissed off when players lose their way on a regular basis. That expectation of performance from the tea lady to the chairman is what has made that club into a Big club over time. We are in the Big Game now, we need to starting acting and believing like we belong here and not just here to make up the numbers so TV guys can comment on something different everything week. We need to start expressing expectation and when that doesn't materialize to express a recognition as to why that doesn't happen. If you want nice polite rose tinted conversation - lah di dah lah di dah - talk to the wife or girl friend or a stuffed animal. This doesn't mean we forget where we came from and swagger with dumb arrogance like some of the Big Club big mouths that saunter in from time to time, but it does mean we get comfortable with becoming a Bigger club and to stay here and get bigger we cannot be switching on and off when we feel like it on the field. We have to grow a spine and stiffen it up when the going gets tough because the Big clubs in decline will scrap like street rats to avoid their drop. Our style has morphed since last season. But stamina, focus, fight and bite on the park are for the players to bring for 90 minutes regardless of who they think they are and how talented they are or are not. The big positive from yesterday is that we fielded a team that on paper wasn't our best XI against an Arsenal side that you can fairly say was .... and we drew a game we could have, should have won, but for a spell where we lost focus and dropped our game badly. Arsenal didn't beat us in that period as much as we were beating ourselves on simple stuff. This sort of football will be our undoing if the habit isn't broken. I don't mind getting beaten by better, that is going to happen, but losing because of our own lack of focus, stamina, and work rate is not acceptable because we control that not the opposition. Another big positive is learning that we have 3 Prem standard center backs in Bartley, Chico and Ash, and any two of the three could play for me any day. Another big positive is DG - one goal is nice, two could be a fluke, but this trend could have some legs and couldn't be happening at a better time as it takes the pressure off Michu. Whatever he's been doing off the field he'd better keep doing it because its working. So yet another big game added to the docket this month. I guess it comes with the territory but we sure could start doing ourselves some favors and stick the knife in and twist it when we are flying and on top - like Arsenal did to us yesterday. This month will make us or break us, points and injury will define the balance of the season. It's exciting isn't it.
Well said, Yankee, particularly paras 4 and 5. As you say, stamina, focus, work rate, fight and bite is something that every professional should bring to the game, regardless of talent. Of late, that has gone missing for large chunks of the time. Against Arsenal, I was looking for more from JdG, Dyer, Pablo, Kemy and, to a lesser extent Ki, who did contribute going forward. Note, they are all midfield players. Definite plus points were Bartley (coming in cold to a big game), Danny (finding his goal touch), Michu (retaining his despite not being 100%) and young Ben Davies (doing a great job as a rookie and getting better by the game).
I thought it was an entertaining game against one of the best clubs in the premiership and our midfield done ok, some on here had better start to realize that there are teams in this league better than us and we are not going to boss the midfield. We done great to get back to 2-2 and have another shot at going through because Arsenal showed why they are a top club and we had to pull out all the stops to draw the game and we needed our best players to do that in the end...
It was an entertaining game. But even the commentators on the TV said multiple times when we were getting pummeled that we went AWOL for a spell in the second half. And Arsenal are not better than us .... Won 0-2 away, tie 2-2 at home is not a losing record, it's a winning record, which would imply that head-to-head we are better than them although the league table says that overall we are five points behind them. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, then snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat. Very entertaining stuff. But, if we had of retained even 25% possession during that spell in the second half and strung at least two passes together and didn't have players overwhelmed with what looked like fatigue we wouldn't have had to snatch at anything. We would have ridden it out and finished strong and perhaps going away. And again this gets back to my point of genuflecting to "big" clubs .... Arsenal are a top club, blah, blah, blah, but so for that matter are we. Not top in the sense that we spend a ton of money we don't have, to pay a ton of money to players that on the margins struggle against "non-top" clubs like us. We are top where it matters on the field. Again entertaining game, a game we coulda, shoulda won, but we didn't because of the same slip-n-slide we showed against Villa. It's so nice that we have the character to come back when down a goal instead of hanging our head. All very entertaining. Now, wouldn't it just be a tad more entertaining if we didn't have to do that on what is becoming an annoying trend of regularity. Best players .... in the end our best midfield player was on the bench in Leon. Our best right back was on the bench in Rangel. One of our best center backs was in the stands - Ash. One of our best wingers was on the bench (Routledge) and one of our lesser wingers (recently - Dyer) was still on the field. We didn't need our best players, we needed players to play a full 90 minutes .... cause when we played Arsenal couldn't do too much to stop us.
I have to say that Yankee has summed this up perfect for me. There is a tendency to think we are too small a club to compete with the big boys when the reality is we are more than up to it, why should we be worried about Arsenal when the only time they beat us in this league is when Vorm made an absolute howler and gifted the game !! Other than that we have come out on top and in actually should have beaten them at their place last season so there is no need to pay these teams too much respect! we are in the prem league on merit and our players see playing these types of teams as a chance to progress not a once in a lifetime ambition. Many jacks think its wrong to be objective about our team but what is the point of a forum if ot to talk about how we can get better and improve when we dont get the results and to sing the praises when we get a great win? I would much rather talk about what players are below par than talk about how great Michu is every week! its the fabric of football to talk about how to get stronger not to talk about how amazing everything is..how boring is that ? I didnt see the game(am stuck in Gran caneria on a sun lounger!) so cant really comment too much about it but seasoned and well respected posters like Yankee and Ivor give the low down for me and are the comments that give me the best perspective of the team performance. An objective view even when playing well is very important on message boards,it creates wonderful debate and keeps us grounded. Swansea are by no means world beaters and there is alot of improvement to make in the team, thats the point that people are missing here. We are not playing at 100% right now, we have not managed a 90min performance all season,there is alot more in our locker so its not unreasonable to question selection,personal performance,tactics,fitness and other things. We all love the Swans immensely so please dont get irked when somebody points out obvious things about the team! we are not playing our best football irrelevent of the results we are getting and there is nothing wrong with pointing it out when it happens
And Arsenal are not better than us Come on now yankee of course they are better than us, we beat man city so are we better than them.. slow down a bit we have a way to go yet before we can class ourselves in the same breath as man utd,man city, arsenal,chelsea and liverpool.....we may get there and we may not but they are the big teams in the premiership and if we can achieve half of what those clubs have achieved then we can say we are as good as them....get a bit of realism of where we are in the premiership....
Yankee and Ivor are top-class posters but they always sing from the same hymn-sheet so you won't get a very balanced view by just going on their comments. I don't have any coaching badges or stuff like that but I get the impression that we must be playing against 11 traffic cones sometimes. Football, like pretty much any other sport, is a game of ebb and flow. Both teams had periods of supremacy but you are unlikely to dominate any game for the whole 90 minutes. I can accept this, others seemingly not. Misplaced passes and being put on the back foot are a result of being pressurised. Bloody great second half though
Record against top clubs this season: Man City 0-1 (A) Man Utd 1-1 (H) Chelsea 1-1 (H) Arsenal 2-0 (A) Arsenal 2-2 (H) Spurs 0-1 (A) Liverpool 3-1 (A) Liverpool 0-0 (H) This is a W-2, D-4, L-2 record against your top teams Dai. And our two losses have been away from home, as have our two victories. Next thing you'll be harping on about how the league has declined in its standards. I don't need to slow down, you need to get up to speed. Everybody clings to the history of these top clubs like that imbues them with some divine right to walk on water. Fact is football is all about here and now and history is to look back on when you're too old, or too slow, or no bloody good to compete in the here and now. We are playing these teams equal in the here and now. Today is what counts not yesterday. If we sit on our duff and wax poetic about how little old us came back to tie a game against a top club in decline we coulda, shoulda won going away we are not going to achieve our history. Instead we need to be realistic about how good we are, and how good we aren't, and fix the bad parts ... because we are a lot better than we are getting credit for and everybody in league is beginning to recognize that and our time is coming ... but we have to get real and fix the parts that need fixing.
Agree - a lot of good action, ebbs and flows. Great game to watch as an impartial fan of the game or as a fan of one of the teams.
......... Your so Yankee doodle dandy there, yankee!...... Now this issue with our midfield goes back to Joe Allen going, believe it or not, seems some didn't realise how much of the dirty work he and Leon were doing over the years, that kept our midfield dominance, but now Leon is left on his own doing this job, and we are somewhat diluted subsequently in this regard, as none of our new recruits have a clue with regard to this, and I particularly focus on De Guzman and Ki, as their battling skills are pretty much none existent. Our strongest midfield has to have Agustien in it, and this lad needs to have a good run of games to get up to form, and Ki and De Guzman should be alternated between games and the bench, this is how I would handle our midfield until we can get a true midfield General, in the image of Bodde! I agree we are diluted in our midfield, but when Leon comes off it goes pair shaped............
Yankee this is our only second season in the premiership and you think we are as good as the big sides who have been here for years.. get a grip man..
Scores and results don't lie. Here and now .... we're as good as. The only difference between the likes of the top clubs and us is consistency - minute to minute and game to game. In terms of talent, coaching, tactics etc, there's nothing but marginal differences. At the end of the season those marginal differences add up, which is why there is a spread in the table on points. And I don't see what difference the number of years you spend in the Prem has to do with anything. Unless I'm missing something this isn't figure skating - you get points for results, not style or how long you've been around. In '82-83 we could have won the league had our squad stayed healthy and that was our first season.
Well said. What I hear is not small club mentality but rather realistic expectations of swanseas abilities and football in general.
Dai, no one is saying that we should boss the midfield. There are many better teams than us who will have a say about that. The point I am making, is that when we are unable to boss the midfield, we should at the very least be COMPETING in there. There have been too many games where we have not competed and resorted to falling back so deep, it is football criminality. There is not one manager in the entire football league who advocates defending on the edge of your own penalty area and we have been guilty of doing a lot of that. Your own experience and common sense will tell you why we shouldn't be doing it.. We need to bring in a powerful midfield dog, or two, who can get in amongst the opposition, disrupt them and win the ball for us to play our passing stuff. Like it or not, you can look to the top clubs for your examples. They've all got, or had, combative midfielders as an essential part of their armoury. You can compile your own list, there's scores of them, but for starters you have Scholes, Fletcher, Keane, Parker, Essien, Mikel, Ya Ya etc etc. And think on. Since Arsenal lost the powerhouse players such as Viera and Petit, who allowed the rest of them to play their football, they have been on a steady decline ever since. Now, I know we can't possibly afford the quality of those I've mentioned but rather I am talking about the TYPE of player that we need. Perhaps our lot would shine in La Liga, in fact I'm sure of it because it isn't as physical there. But we play in the Premier League where the environment demands a balance of the two types of footballer - those who can play and those that win the ball to allow them to play. We need an injection of the latter.
I'm looking forward to the Chelsea game. What a test this is going to be. Chelsea are just firing on all cylinders right now and with Ba up front, or Torres, or both it's going to be a tough challenge. No option but to compete for 90 in this one - or we're going to get slammed. It's also going to be fascinating to see how Laudrup plays the two legs tactically.
for god sake Blackpool done the same and it did not make them a big club. there are many clubs who will get the odd result from the big clubs and a lot of them are now in the lower leagues....We have years to go yet until we can class ourselves as one of the big boys. Arsenal have never been out of the top flight since they were formed and nobody has won more cups and titles as Liverpool or man utd, They are what you call big clubs not us that have not completed 2 seasons yet....what about us not being able to beat the bottom clubs, are they better than us then. We have to be realistic and not think we are better than we are and accept the fact we will never achieve what the big clubs have achieved if we were celebrating a million years and not our centenary...Just staying in the premiership is a massive achievement for clubs like ours and our realistic aim is trying to qualify for Europe but mainly not to finish in the bottom 3..... that's realism
If you don't aspire up .... then you aspire down and down you will go. As a matter of fact we are still the beneficiary of a Championship cost structure in terms of player contracts. As time goes by, this structure will change to accommodate new players and improve the compensation of existing players on contract renewals etc. Our costs will rise to meet if not exceed our domestic revenues and that's when our real problems will hit. This in unavoidable. Our only hope of avoiding this flip in cash flow is to increase international revenue from merchandise and the licensing of property rights over which we regain control. The only way to succeed in this is to win because it is a limited market for top clubs only .... and top clubs are "top" because they play in Europe, are at the top of their domestic leagues, are recurrently successful in terms of winning or challenging for trophies and have players on their books that are either true stars or highly regarded in their domestic markets (e.g. KI - who walks on water over there). You don't get to stay in this league by worrying about staying up, you get there by striving upwards. There is no profit in treading water, merely surviving is not a viable financial option to stay in the Prem. This doesn't mean we spend stupid money, it means we must invest prudently and strive to be increasingly competitive - effectively to become a top club. "Top" can have many meanings but for financial survival it means we have to have international recognition and are able to market to an international audience - this is not an option, it is an imperative.
I go along with a lot of that Dai, but you do know that the likes of Manu & Arsenal had to start somewhere? So we are a club that has achieved a lot on the field, and hence why we are now at the top of the pyramid, but that does not mean there are no other targets to aim for, because there certainly are, and the first target I would think for our board, is establishing a firm footing at this level, and the foundation at this level, has to include the development of our club from being small to medium sized in the short term, that will take some off field strategy and development too, and of course we are talking commercial development also, which we are not noted for to be honest, and that has to change from the corner shop mentality, to global branding!...............
Michael Laudrup does tend to keep emphasising that we are small fry compared to most of the prem clubs however this just seems to inspire us to play better against them, on the other hand it can make us complacent when it comes to playing our fellow minnows and we've annoyingly dropped points against several of them. The media see us as over achievers again this season and most are very surprised that we are not down at the lower end of the table fighting for survivial but despite their negativity our club is continuing to improve thanks to a determined and imaginative board. We have grown very rapidly to get where we are now but it will take many years of sustained success for us to be truly accepted and recognised as an established premier league side.
