Swansea Post Match Thread

[Zingari]

Thanks Tony you an M Dave seem to always capture the essence of the match. Happy New Year mate!

my thoughts exactly

[Haydos]

Not entirely sure you were watching the same Yuki Abe as I was, mind. Not saying he was perfect - I definitely saw him give the ball away a couple of times with wayward passes - but to suggest he lacked effort seems a bit off. He was one of the few people I actually saw putting a foot in.

Agreed, first half he was on par with the rest of the team: below par Second half though he did a great job defensively, giving their midfield little time on the ball. In possession I thought he was woeful at times. He panics under pressure and even with time quite a few of his passes went astray.

[Finnegan]

I think a lot of that is symptomatic of what I was talking about, though. A complete lack of movement and thus passing options.

[Brown Fox]

To be honest I think people are being over critical of our performance yesterday. Yes we weren't spectacular but we were so so effective. Gallagher definitely had one of his better games winning lots of headers somehow as well as having terrific delivery with both goals and the free kick where King should have scored. People are criticising our midfield 3 but they did there job more defensively than usual because Swansea are so dangerous on the break. Yesteday we played on Swanseas weaknesses by allowing them to only pass it sideways and not allowing them to break. Our defence definitely came out on top yesterday. Also people have been saying we looked disinterested and should have been pressing them when they had possession in the first half but I disagree because if we did keep pressing they would have been able to draw a man and make space for another player whereas by standing off a bit they could only pass sideways, obviously this will not work on all teams but there was no point pressing them when their passing is so accurate they would have cut us apart by drawing men out of position. I know that Sinclair should have had more pressure on him when he scored but hey ho we won! Also I'd like to point out that Naughton redeemee himself very well in the 2nd half after being destroyed by Sinclair in the 2nd half Naughton kept him very quiet which is why he didn't do his usually pushing up and helping the attack as he instead marked Sinclair out of the game.

All in all I think a very effective performance yesterday! Bring on Preston!!

[artursteppe]

It was the manner of the victory that did it for me. When we play against hard working sides who want to 'bully' us, Wellens, King and Gallagher all go missing and we usually lose. They actually worked hard against Swansea, especially in the second half - we won, and we deserved to. They scored one top class goal, and with one ricocheted tackle were given a lucky break to give them their only other chance in the whole match. What do people want, or expect??? I agree many of our players have played better games as individuals, but this was the best indication to me that we can really challenge for promotion if we keep the same work ethic and collective responsibility. The last two matches will go down as the positive turning point we have all been waiting for to push onward and upward

[Haydos]

Wellens' and Gallagher's irrational fear of shooting. The amount of times Wellens had 5 yards of space 25 yards out and Gallagher cut in from the right hand corner of the area just screamed for a few testers. Apart from Vassell's effort I can't remember a decent hit from outside the box

[harpendenfox]

To be honest I think people are being over critical of our performance yesterday. Yes we weren't spectacular but we were so so effective. Gallagher definitely had one of his better games winning lots of headers somehow as well as having terrific delivery with both goals and the free kick where King should have scored. People are criticising our midfield 3 but they did there job more defensively than usual because Swansea are so dangerous on the break. Yesteday we played on Swanseas weaknesses by allowing them to only pass it sideways and not allowing them to break. Our defence definitely came out on top yesterday. Also people have been saying we looked disinterested and should have been pressing them when they had possession in the first half but I disagree because if we did keep pressing they would have been able to draw a man and make space for another player whereas by standing off a bit they could only pass sideways, obviously this will not work on all teams but there was no point pressing them when their passing is so accurate they would have cut us apart by drawing men out of position. I know that Sinclair should have had more pressure on him when he scored but hey ho we won! Also I'd like to point out that Naughton redeemee himself very well in the 2nd half after being destroyed by Sinclair in the 2nd half Naughton kept him very quiet which is why he didn't do his usually pushing up and helping the attack as he instead marked Sinclair out of the game.

All in all I think a very effective performance yesterday! Bring on Preston!!

Good post BrownFox. It was a quiet game, perhaps as a result of it being the fourth in nine days for most of the participants. Swansea scored an excellent goal, and had two other chances of note, one just after their goal, and the one on one with Weale when our man did his job rather well. To suggest players were disinterested is a nonsense. We were effective for virtually the entire game. I'm not keen on Gallagher either but he did well yesterday, and at one stage miraculously won two headers in a row right in front of me. That was sandwiched in between his delivery of two corners from which we scored goals - dreamland!

Even though it was only 2-1 I felt we were comfortable towards the end, although I did my best to banish those thoughts from my head for fear of Swansea producing an instant equaliser, but towards the end I thought they looked well beaten, frankly.

Off to Preston we go in a fortnight. Our form shows we've struggled rather more against teams in the bottom half of the table, and by then they will have a new manager. A draw might not be not be too shabby, although if we play as well as we can I have no doubt we can win.

[MC Prussian]

When I say that we played "really well", then in context of our appearance as a unit - something we've been missing for so long since Pearson left.

A very solid defensive display created the basis upon which midfield and attackers could roam more or less freely in the opposing half, focusing on what they do best - threatening the other box (or at least trying to do so).

Surely, it wasn't the same free-flowing passing game we've witnessed a few times this season (both under Sousa and Eriksson), but it seems we had a gameplan for once and were determined to prevent a strong Swansea side coming too close to Weale's area.

Apart from three shots from distance (two in the first, one of which was Sinclair's goal; and one in the second when a defensive slip-up allowed the Swansea player to run towards Weale, with that terrible miss wide of the right post), the Welsh side were pretty much contained from A to Z.

There was a period when they passed the ball along quite neatly in the second, but they simply failed to find a way through the web.

Individually, I concur that some of our players had a mediocre outing. Again, I wasn't particularly impressed with Gallagher's hunch for hesitation, Wellens had a couple of weak moments with poor passes and Abe was so-so lala, too.

Yet, a few glimpses of genius were enough to keep the Swans at bay. We shocked them with two early goals and then simply closed the curtains.

More of this in the near future, please. If only some of the midfielders and strikers could cut some slack from our back four's performance on Monday, we can go a long way.

Play Vassell up front, maybe place a Waghorn there and shuffle the middle around a bit.

[Kitchandro]

To be honest I think people are being over critical of our performance yesterday. Yes we weren't spectacular but we were so so effective. Gallagher definitely had one of his better games winning lots of headers somehow as well as having terrific delivery with both goals and the free kick where King should have scored. People are criticising our midfield 3 but they did there job more defensively than usual because Swansea are so dangerous on the break. Yesteday we played on Swanseas weaknesses by allowing them to only pass it sideways and not allowing them to break. Our defence definitely came out on top yesterday. Also people have been saying we looked disinterested and should have been pressing them when they had possession in the first half but I disagree because if we did keep pressing they would have been able to draw a man and make space for another player whereas by standing off a bit they could only pass sideways, obviously this will not work on all teams but there was no point pressing them when their passing is so accurate they would have cut us apart by drawing men out of position. I know that Sinclair should have had more pressure on him when he scored but hey ho we won! Also I'd like to point out that Naughton redeemee himself very well in the 2nd half after being destroyed by Sinclair in the 2nd half Naughton kept him very quiet which is why he didn't do his usually pushing up and helping the attack as he instead marked Sinclair out of the game.

All in all I think a very effective performance yesterday! Bring on Preston!!

But that's not true is it, we took our foot off the pedal and let them back into the game. We stood off them and they scored.

We pressed them in the second half and they struggled to break us down, but for a defensive lapse in concentration when they nearly equalised a second time.

First half we gave them way too much time and space.

[Brown Fox]

Fair point Kitchandro. Their goal was class take nothing away from it the build up play and everything. I just felt though that we were so comfortable in the 1st half because they did what we did under Sousa which was pass it sidewards and backwards so we could afford to stand off of them. 2nd half they were chasing the game more and I credit our midfield and defence for getting stuck in very well. I just thought that under the circumstances they didn't need to be pressed as much other teams will be when they come to the walkers. For example if we get amongst Millwall then we should beat them convincingly.

[marbelladave]

I feel people are letting the good result cloud their judgement...

We were piss poor first half, our midfield was outclassed and chasing shadows and no-one other than Vassell pressing up field. When we did get possession we were bullied off the ball by a more confident and robust Swansea midfield.

The Swans were far from their best but they blew us away and only lousy finishing and some desperate defending from Morrison and Hobbs kept kept them to just the one goal. At the other end we scored two scrambled goals from corners, from corners! how lucky is that?

Second half we were better but we concentrated on stopping Swansea and created little ourself but at least we put in the effort and that was important as we were in front, however luckily.

Don't get me wrong, I applaud our victory and was pleased by the effort shown second half but I can not call our overall performance anything other than pretty poor.

[nickelbyfox]

Really cant please some people, looking dangerous from set pieces and soring from corners is luck? What a silly statement. Wonder why you send your big defenders up for corners...........maybe to force the ball into the net anyhow?

Play ugly and win its Pearson's team, but try and play pretty and lose, Sven needs sacking, do you really think City didnt have a game plan to let Swansea play the ball around, play more direct to Vassel and make the most of breaks and other opportunities, ie set pieces and maybe corners! May not be Barcelona style football but seemed pretty effective, which for back to back wins in three days is pretty impressive. However everyone is entitled to their opinion

[CosbehFox]

I think a lot of this thread showcases how difficult folk find it applaud good defending. Everyone in Football gets up off their feet at a great goal or a beautiful and either the odd block and crucial header are applauded.

However, the art of good defending is largely ignored. Marking, keeping shape, organisation are greatly forgotten and undermined. We played our 4th game in a short space of days, Sven knew Swansea's style and had a game plan it worked. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't brilliant to watch, it was full of graft and keeping your shape. We gave them too much space first half and the midfield three didn't mark jack all. Second half, King stuck with Gower, Abe stuck with Pratley, Wellens can't mark for toffee but thankfully Agustien didn't want to know. Swansea tired, they were bound to make all that nice space for themselves. Sven didn't want us getting caught out with a man for man in our half...the only time it happened second half, Sinclair should have scored as Naughton completely lost where he was. Let Monk or Williams run all day with the ball, you seen the amount of times the pair of them whacked it out for a throwing-in, they couldn't pass.

Personally, I thought it was a clever professional win, not the greatest watch ever. Ask most Swansea fans and they'll agree, teams have sussed up them and play like that against them. Rodgers comes out with some spiel about them outplaying sides to cover his lack of B and the boards' recultance to pay top dollar for a striker. Their fans are getting rather restless at seeing the same old. If they had a striker with the bottle and menace of Bothroyd, they'd be winning this division with ease. If Sven keeps up such tactical nous and players don't go making howlers, we'll go up the table whether it's sticking five past Doncaster (where a blind man could have spot it was all about the wingers and full-backs) or grinding it out against Swansea.

[marbelladave]

Really cant please some people, looking dangerous from set pieces and soring from corners is luck? What a silly statement. Wonder why you send your big defenders up for corners...........maybe to force the ball into the net anyhow?

Play ugly and win its Pearson's team, but try and play pretty and lose, Sven needs sacking, do you really think City didnt have a game plan to let Swansea play the ball around, play more direct to Vassel and make the most of breaks and other opportunities, ie set pieces and maybe corners! May not be Barcelona style football but seemed pretty effective, which for back to back wins in three days is pretty impressive. However everyone is entitled to their opinion

We sent big defenders forward to all our corners, approx 250 so far this season and the goals on monday were our first. Two goals from corners in a little over half an hour, pretty much against the run of play seems pretty damn lucky to me!

'Play ugly' or 'play pretty and lose' are hardly the only options available and if letting Swansea run us ragged was actually part of our gameplan why did we make changes to try and combat their dominance as early as midway through the first half? Why did we change things so radically at half time.

If our plan was to attack on the break, where was the midfield passing, the runners supporting Vassell the threat from open play?

It was a typical Pearson display in as far as we won points we barely deserved but quite frankly we were lucky, a little more sharpness in the final third from Swansea could have seen us well beaten.

The result was pleasing but we were little better than at Millwall and no better than against Leeds, we will not win many games playing as we did on monday and that is the reality.

[Webbo]

We did what needed to do to get the win. As far as I'm concerned we deserved it.

[Kitchandro]

I think a lot of this thread showcases how difficult folk find it applaud good defending. Everyone in Football gets up off their feet at a great goal or a beautiful and either the odd block and crucial header are applauded.

However, the art of good defending is largely ignored. Marking, keeping shape, organisation are greatly forgotten and undermined. We played our 4th game in a short space of days, Sven knew Swansea's style and had a game plan it worked. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't brilliant to watch, it was full of graft and keeping your shape. We gave them too much space first half and the midfield three didn't mark jack all. Second half, King stuck with Gower, Abe stuck with Pratley, Wellens can't mark for toffee but thankfully Agustien didn't want to know. Swansea tired, they were bound to make all that nice space for themselves. Sven didn't want us getting caught out with a man for man in our half...the only time it happened second half, Sinclair should have scored as Naughton completely lost where he was. Let Monk or Williams run all day with the ball, you seen the amount of times the pair of them whacked it out for a throwing-in, they couldn't pass.

Personally, I thought it was a clever professional win, not the greatest watch ever. Ask most Swansea fans and they'll agree, teams have sussed up them and play like that against them. Rodgers comes out with some spiel about them outplaying sides to cover his lack of B and the boards' recultance to pay top dollar for a striker. Their fans are getting rather restless at seeing the same old. If they had a striker with the bottle and menace of Bothroyd, they'd be winning this division with ease. If Sven keeps up such tactical nous and players don't go making howlers, we'll go up the table whether it's sticking five past Doncaster (where a blind man could have spot it was all about the wingers and full-backs) or grinding it out against Swansea.

But we didn't see any of that in the first half, I think that's what people are saying. I appreciated the solid second half performance but the first half was just lacklustre and disorganised.

I agree with what you're saying though, it's not always about the spectacular, getting the points is the most important thing and like I say I was impressed with the solid second half performance

[marbelladave]

I think a lot of this thread showcases how difficult folk find it applaud good defending. Everyone in Football gets up off their feet at a great goal or a beautiful and either the odd block and crucial header are applauded.

However, the art of good defending is largely ignored. Marking, keeping shape, organisation are greatly forgotten and undermined. We played our 4th game in a short space of days, Sven knew Swansea's style and had a game plan it worked. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't brilliant to watch, it was full of graft and keeping your shape. We gave them too much space first half and the midfield three didn't mark jack all. Second half, King stuck with Gower, Abe stuck with Pratley, Wellens can't mark for toffee but thankfully Agustien didn't want to know. Swansea tired, they were bound to make all that nice space for themselves. Sven didn't want us getting caught out with a man for man in our half...the only time it happened second half, Sinclair should have scored as Naughton completely lost where he was. Let Monk or Williams run all day with the ball, you seen the amount of times the pair of them whacked it out for a throwing-in, they couldn't pass.

Personally, I thought it was a clever professional win, not the greatest watch ever. Ask most Swansea fans and they'll agree, teams have sussed up them and play like that against them. Rodgers comes out with some spiel about them outplaying sides to cover his lack of B and the boards' recultance to pay top dollar for a striker. Their fans are getting rather restless at seeing the same old. If they had a striker with the bottle and menace of Bothroyd, they'd be winning this division with ease. If Sven keeps up such tactical nous and players don't go making howlers, we'll go up the table whether it's sticking five past Doncaster (where a blind man could have spot it was all about the wingers and full-backs) or grinding it out against Swansea.

This is fair comment.

We did improve in the second half pretty much as you descibe, however this was largely a holding operation and although fairly effective defensively we created very little going forward.

Yes we defended fairly well but Morrison and to a lesser extent Hobbs are pretty blunt instruments though Swansea failed to take advantage but the most professional thing we managed was closing down midfield, after the first half that was critical.

Just thankfull for the first half goals, I would have hated to see us have to chase the game.

[okie fox]

We did improve in the second half pretty much as you descibe, however this was largely a holding operation and although fairly effective defensively we created very little going forward.

Why does it matter if we created little going forward in the second half? The point is that Swansea created very little, and they were chasing the game, not us. If we had pushed forward, we would have exposed ourselves at the back (not a good idea with Sinclair on the pitch).

[marbelladave]

Why does it matter if we created little going forward in the second half? The point is that Swansea created very little, and they were chasing the game, not us. If we had pushed forward, we would have exposed ourselves at the back (not a good idea with Sinclair on the pitch).

The point was that we did not need to get forward as we had a somewhat undeserved lead, were we level and chasing the game we could have been in real trouble.

We did pretty well given the situation we were in, that we were in that situation and ahead was somewhat fortuitous.

[Kent]

The point was that we did not need to get forward as we had a somewhat undeserved lead, were we level and chasing the game we could have been in real trouble.

We did pretty well given the situation we were in, that we were in that situation and ahead was somewhat fortuitous.

Don't back pedal too much, I agree with your original point that we didn't play particularly well especially in the first half. We stood off them for the first 45 minutes and tried to contain them which wasn't that pleasing especially at home. I also agree we should have felt fortunate to be 2-1 up at the interval, neither goal was a 'well worked' play - although a goals a goal. However the second half was better, we weren't just trying to contain them but we applied a bit more pressure, they faded and we looked a bit more dangerous.

3 points, two wins on the trot. Mustn't grumble.

[marbelladave]

Don't back pedal too much, I agree with your original point that we didn't play particularly well especially in the first half. We stood off them for the first 45 minutes and tried to contain them which wasn't that pleasing especially at home. I also agree we should have felt fortunate to be 2-1 up at the interval, neither goal was a 'well worked' play - although a goals a goal. However the second half was better, we weren't just trying to contain them but we applied a bit more pressure, they faded and we looked a bit more dangerous.

3 points, two wins on the trot. Mustn't grumble.

Certainly not...

In another thread it has been pointed out that our record post Sousa puts us in the top 6 yet it is still my view that we are capable of much better, as we have shown in spells a number of times since Sven's arrival.

It is my hope (almost expectation) that if we can bring in a couple more players and settle into a good rhythm then a playoff spot is a distinct possibility.

Should the team and our new players fail to gel then mid table is the best we can hope for.

[CosbehFox]

Just thankfull for the first half goals, I would have hated to see us have to chase the game.

That applied to any team in the Championship where your team had played 4 games in a short period. Every game was either a draw or a win by a single goal says a lot.

[Finnegan]

A very solid defensive display created the basis upon which midfield and attackers could roam more or less freely in the opposing half, focusing on what they do best - threatening the other box

But they didn't.

They barely even had the ball, we just sat and watched Swansea play. And even when we did have the ball we either kicked it straight back from the defence up hopelessly to Vassell or there was so little movement from the midfield and forwards that we were left passing it sideways or backwards.

[marbelladave]

That applied to any team in the Championship where your team had played 4 games in a short period. Every game was either a draw or a win by a single goal says a lot.

True but missing the point.

The comment was in a post replying to the suggestion that we played quite well, presumeably because we won.

We didn't, we were poor. Just about the only decent thing we did was shutting down the Swansea midfield in the second half and that was primarily down to Abe, King and Vassell defending from the front.

Yes all the games were tight and our poor display could, in part at least be down to tiredness, but the point remains that, somehow, we managed three points from a performance that barely warrented one.

[okie fox]

True but missing the point.

The comment was in a post replying to the suggestion that we played quite well, presumeably because we won.

We didn't, we were poor. Just about the only decent thing we did was shutting down the Swansea midfield in the second half and that was primarily down to Abe, King and Vassell defending from the front.

Yes all the games were tight and our poor display could, in part at least be down to tiredness, but the point remains that, somehow, we managed three points from a performance that barely warrented one.

That's the whole point! Sven made a tactical adjustment at half time. Swansea only had one decent attempt on goal in the second half (credit the whole team for shutting them down). It might not have been pretty, but it certainly wasn't poor.