After the sad news of Gary Speed today, who cares??!!
I tend to agree, but listening to the tribute played by Howard Wilkinson today, he praised Gary Speed as the ultimate professional......there was talk of perhaps postponing the game. Wilkinson who knew Speed probably far better than any of us said that having the game postponed was the last thing that he would have wanted.
A lot was made by the commentators and pundits today about Swanseas "neat possession football" and the old cliche "they lack a cutting edge".........well if it was said once it was said a dozen times, I tend to disagree Swansea have players who will score goals
IF they are given the chance; do Swansea need to be more direct? Their neat and tidy possession football is nice to watch, but how effective is it, in after all what is a results business. I'm not suggesting that they abandon their footballing ethos and go for route one, but perhaps try and break more quickly, and perhaps instead of making 5 or 6 passes try and get forward with 2 or 3. I lost count of the times today when the Swans had chance to push forward, well they wanted to make that "extra" pass.........it gave the Villa defenders time to get back into position........and by the time the Swans were in the danger area the Villa back four had had plenty of time to get back in position, often with a couple of midfielders getting into position in front of the back four, very difficult to break down, especially against PL defenders..........it takes the "flash of genius" that is all to rarely seen to score in those circumstances. I know Swansea's game is based on possession football, but you don't have to hang on to the ball forever FFS..........you have more clean sheets than anyone else in the PL so it's not as if you are poor and leaking goals at the back.........if you take a few more chances (without being silly) and try to be a bit more direct, instead of trying to score "the perfect team goal" every time, well you might find you have a bit more success in front of goal.........you won't go down IMO (too good for that), but let your attacking players find themselves 2 on 3 or whatever, give them a chance instead of finding themselves up against packed defences that have had time to position themselves. You are not a bad side, don't be frightened of sometimes losing the ball, you will always get it back.........and it could result in a few more goals for you..............a 3 - 2 win has to be better than a 0 - 0 draw...........I think you will stay up, and perhaps next season be more confident in your own ability......but at the moment, well 0 - 0 always looks to be a good bet where the Swans are concerned.
Not a critisism.........just observations
