Oh well I guess it was only to be expected really,Swans getting mauled by Man utd was always a possibility with players like Van Persie around. There were a lot of talking points in this game for me though. Van persie is total world class,we needed him to have an off day to stand a chance of realistically getting something from this game. There seemed to be an over confidence radiating from the message boards and other media regardin this match too,somthing I was not totally comfortable with, but anyway, its done now,laudrup learned a lot im sure . some of the players have now returned back to planet Earth after somehow believing that conceding only one goal in pre season/euro meant they were suddenly astounding at defending, we seem to be one of the few clubs that tends to believe bullshit when its written about us ! a nice reality check for them today then! ratings. Vorm 7 did ok,couldnt really fault him for the goals maybecould have done better in coming for crosses as it appears Ash Williams does have a square head after all! Davies 7 was at fault as much as ash for the utd 2nd goal, mentally switched off at a critical time,i prefer taylor for games like this,he is better defensively ,Ben didnt do much else wrong though, in experience got the better of him at times. Ash 6 People keep talking about him as a good captain but ive never really seen that I him, great when things are going well but invisible when the **** hits the fan! was at fault for the 2nd goal totally read the flight of the ball wrong and it went over his head,just like a sunday league player ! difficult to be too harsh with the rest of is game though,van persie schooled him and giving ash a bruised ego is perhaps not such a bad thing! must do better though Chico 6 some great tackles and some poor positional play,sometimes he looked all over the place, great in the tackle but does some random stuff that you just dot get away with against top sides,looked like a £2m defender today,another that needs t wind his ego in and concentrate on personal performance, Rangel 6 what is it with him and utd ? that's the second goal at the liberty he has gifted the champions!! wasn't impressive going forward or at defending,looked his age yesterday so needs to take it up a level now, playina utd player onside by 2 yards is school boy stuff,shows you how far off mentally rangel was yesterday. Britton 6 neat and tidy,gave it away a few times, steady eddy Routs 6 flattered to deceive for me. needs to buck his ideas up, looks off form for some reason and is lacking end product . Dyer 7 I actually thought his movement has improved greatly and he has defo been working on his first touch,faded after 70 mins Canas 8 stand out player for me,did well after picking up a yellow card after 2 minutes, showed great mental strength to keep his discipline for the restof game,that shows to me he knows what he is doing . used the ball well,and will only get better , looked like leon britton on steroids ! Shelvey 7 wll grow into this team, seems to have all the tools but needs to stop his aimless long passes, he often slows us up when measuring that type of ball and he telegraphs it to the opposite defender which kind of takes away the usefulness of the pass! for his first game did great. Michu 7 was unlucky with a couple of efforts,its clear that striker against top teams is not his best position. The subs were our strength!! when did we think we would ever say that ?? Bony and Pablo for me will be critical for us this season, both did well when comin on and its clear to see that Pablo has skills to create goals,just like he didfor bony. laudrups first choice team incudes his Spanish boys that played second half, there was much more creativity then so that was a great positive to look forward to The real Swansea city didn't play until the second half but we must give Man Utd credit for performng like champions,they were under pressure and were desperate to take 3 pts considering he games they have comingup next. Thoughts on the game ? Mine are that basically a good hammering early on will now focus minds and deflate ego's enough so that we can get the reality check that we need. looking at the other teams yesterday there arnt many that look too ragged so we need to improve our defending and concentration,if the players think they are good enough to breeze through its gonna get ugly !
TY for a good read NJ! Do believe you are soft on your grades though: Rangel, Chico, Ash, Davis or Routs getting more than 5s, Davis, Ash and Chico might even deserve 4s. Swansea suffered a heavy defeat, and defence was to blame! Against RvP, but that is no excuse. That said I always predicted this game to be lost - this was a MUCH more important game for Manutd than it was for us! As ML said: they're NOT in our League plus it being Moyes first real competitive game. Imagine if they lost to us and then facing Mourinhos boys (genuine favourites to win the PL), and maybe even losing at home... This was a MUSTWIN for United, and a wake-up call for Swanseas defence and the Swansea not606 board!
Hi Mikra, I feel the ratings were fair as it was against a good Utd side , Ive seen us play a lot better than yesterday but I also think Utd worked hard against us as we did them. Defence has worried me for so long now! it is very inconsistent and we never seem to know which Ash or Chico is going to turn up! I honestly believe this is a blessing though, Swansea is not a team that thrives on the favourites tag, we need to be the underdog , we need to be the ones at 100% maximum all the time,the moment we dip below 100% is the moment we get hammered at home, in fact im struggling to remember the last time that happened, i think it was when we thought we were the dogs bollocks and got stuffed by Norwich if I remember correctly !! So there seems to be a pattern as to why we get a hammering perhaps ? Its not about the defeat to Man Utd,thats expected almost, its just about those silly errors that get made , we need to be 100% focussed to perform if we are not we can be one of the most frustrating teams in the whole world to watch !!
I think you are in danger of over-analysing defensive errors NJ. No doubt what you say is true in an absolute sense, but defenders get pulled around by world-class strikers. They have to make instant decisions which, when we are punished, are highlighted not to be the correct ones. Endless slow-motion replays makes matters worse.
Can't argue with any of that Norway, though it's a shame we couldn't have swapped our CB's at half time too, but I suppose that there was a silver lining in the cloud of defeat yesterday, in Bony getting his first goal on the board, that should now give him the confidence going forward. Now where are we going for the next league game? Spurs........................ I think once Manu got wind that our back line was kipping, they played with us!......
I haven't seen endless replays of any of the game its pretty much off my memory of watching it yesterday. Fair points you make, but as ive said in another thread these same problems keep cropping up and it isn't against the likes of Man utd ,Chelsea or Man city its normally against the likes of reading,norwich,aston villa etc basically against teams and players I regard as equal to our lot. If anything our record against the big boys is better ! which tells you it isn't an ability problem against "world class players "its a concentration problem,that comes with being perhaps a little bit over confident ? Don't think for one minute im thinking a loss to utd is a terrible,it isn't but its the defence that will dictate how well we do this year, the rest of the team is fine . the area laudrup has tinkered with the least is the area we are at our weakest ! food for thought there I think and maybe the crux of our lingering problems. there were plenty on here giving it the big one saying we were going to beat them,it was not a view a shared,so at least I am consistant in that !
Historically our back line was always poor, if you remember, and Martinez did nothing about it, though fair play to Sousa, he got it sorted pretty good, and Rodgers benefited from it, though Rodgers was not as offencive in his style as Laudrup, and there lies the issue, Laudrup's game is great going forward, but it does expose our back line some what, and it asks greater questions of their competence too, but what got me annoyed yesterday was that we had both Britton and Cannas defending the back line, and yet we still couldn't sort ourselves out at the back, to me our back 4 were the reason we lost, not VP or Manu, and at the end of the day, while Manu are a bigger club, I don't buy into this 'You can't expect anything different, our forwards and CB's are not £40 million', because it's not about the price tag, that determines Quality, as we can see from Michu, and West ham's Andy Carroll..................
I agree, in fact our record against the top teams is far better than it is against the likes of Norwich for example ! Its because we are inconsistent to the point of major annoyance ! nothing wrong with the loss yesterday but we gifted thm the game instead of them working for it, if anybody looked at the end of season dvd they will see the same problems in nearly every conceded goal, players flapping around, mis kickinh,skimming headers and being poor positionally, all stuff that players with half their amount of talent could iron out with a bit of focus. Its true that Laudrups style exposes us at the back, and we have consistant performers since the Martinez days still in the team , so its not rocket science to work out they will get problems at this level too. Our brand of football is always going to leave us exposed to the counter attack but silly defensive errors do not give us a chance of competing against these sides. ut out those silly errors yesterday and the game is very balanced. Laudrup knows where improvements can be made but we cannot legislate for daft mistakes ! The players need to be 100% switched on if they are there is no problem, if they believe their own hype they end up making arseholes out of themselves .
Consistence is the issue, and as you know there has been an awful lot of media coverage on Williams going to Arsenal, and it's easy to lose focus then, but last seasons end tells the same story, and I'm sure that our coaching staff will be focusing on our concentration levels, we really do need to sort this sloppy defending out once and for all, I'm not convinced either that Williams should be team captain, he's not much of a rallying call if you ask me!...........
Cut out sloppy defending indeed. as I said on the other thread, all the positives in the world mean nothing if you concede soft goals and lose games,bony could score a goal every game which will be a massive positive but it means nothing if the defence concedes 2 soft goals !! The reality is that we are far too sloppy for this league, without michus goals we were looking at a long hard season,the ability is there and that's the frustrating thing but our defenders need the business head on now as they are fast becoming the weakest link in this team
6 Vorm did generally well - didn't feel like he was particularly to blame. 4 Rangel's positioning cost us the first goal - but he did bomb forward quite well and was willing to have a pop. 3 Davies looked pretty weak in his general play - he gave the ball away and didn't seem quite quick enough in his reactions. He had a bad habit of being drawn in by the ball - jumping in with Ash and Chico cost us the second goal. 4 Chico did some good stuff on the ball but was back to what he was like in the first few games last year - positionally he was all over the place. 5 You can tell when Ash isn't doing well - he starts having a go at the others. A little bit of deflection - but he generally had a point when he did so. Positionally he wasn't great but was probably the least culpable of the back four. 5 Britton shocked me a little bit - he really looked off the pace and let too many passes go astray. He suffered a bit in comparison to Canas who brought more going forward. 8 Canas worked hard throughout and made plenty of interceptions - had a good habit of picking up the ball and driving it forward. He will pick up yellow cards (maybe a red too) and he is a midfield version of Chico: technically gifted, hard wording but can charge around and lose position a little too readily. 6 Shelvey started well - he gets stuck in and does look to unlock the defence. He tired as he went on and it seemed that he was injured at the end (I hope he was, because he was just at a walking pace). 5 Routs - lots of flicks and probing but didn't really look like he was going to achieve anything with it. Can give the ball away a little too frequently. 6 Dyer - ran at players well and worked hard. Did well. 7 Michu - starting to look quite uncomfortable up front, but creates chances and did reasonably well.
Canas is definatly stand out isn't he ? it was hard to think this was his first league game for us! the boy did good along with shelve who did try and make stuff happen. Key for me though is keeping Pablo fir, we just seem to have another dimension when he plays for us. He has vision that the others don't have and hopefully he will make his fair share for Bony and Michu good comments goodland
Vorm 4 Rangel ( under orders to attack while wings cut inside) 6 Chico 5 Ash 5 Davies 6 Leon 7 Canas 6 Routs 6 JS 6 Dyer 7 Michu 5 based on their time on the pitch Ki 7 Pablo 7 Bony 8 ML 5
Vorm 6 Rangel 6 Chico 5 Ash 5 Davies 6 Leon 6 Canas 6 Routs 6 JS 6 Dyer 7 Michu 6 based on their time on the pitch Ki 6 Pablo 7 Bony 8 ML 6 Caught out by a very focussed side who had the quality to beat us, our back line, not very focussed-End of really Not that unhappy with the showing, just knew there wasn't much we could do against this side, unless our boys were performing at their best!
Vorm 7 Rangel 6 Chico 5 Ash 5 Davies 6 Leon 7 Canas 8 Routs 5 JS 6 Dyer 5 Michu 6 Ki 7 Pablo 7 Bony 8
I think the figures above show that we all kind of thinking the same way . We needed to be 100% and wernt . Onto the mighty spurs where I'm sure our defense will want to put things right
To be fair to the lads, up until the first goal went in we looked the better team (by quite some way.) Whilst that happens to us quite a lot (being on top and then getting mugged to find ourselves a goal down) it's rare that we then concede a second so quickly. Basically that knocked the stuffing out of the team as we had been doing so well up to that point only to find ourselves 0-2. The rest of the game was just a reflection of that fact. We're still a developing team and haven't yet found the steel to fight for comebacks like what was needed. Basically - we need to score first, or keep it at 0-0 for as long as possible to win these games.
Phil, I agree that it's not about always about the price that was paid for a player, it's more their current valuation that gives a truer reflection of their quality. At this moment you'd have to agree that no matter how good Ash plays, RvP is simply a better player than him and his valuation will reflect that. Can you blame any player for simply not being as good as another ? Yes we managed to get Michu for 2m, but would we value him at 2m now ? Expensive players are expensive for 2 reasons - 1. They are class. 2. They are English. I think it was RvP and Man U that beat us, our defence just made it a bit easier for them. I also think there's more or less a galactic concensus that the scoreline flattered Utd. I'm disappointed by the scoreline but not overly worried.
Don't disagree with much said - other than the class of Pablo. As I said last season potential means diddly squat - I deliberately counted his passes to Manu and there were 5 - two of which had Ben in front of him and that's been my worry about him - others commit and get left stranded by the the simple mis hit 5 yard pass. I really hope I have to come on here halfway through the season and apologize for being wrong because I'm afraid Routs has had his season of glory and now resorts th the fancy stuff as the defenders just jockey him as he turns inside. There's always Poz though...................
Ashley Williams again showed why he is the most overrated footballer ever to turn out for any football club.
