| Too little too late? 01:30 - Aug 17 with 4765 views | Kerouac |
Tonight was the best football Swansea City has played in ages...
...and the reason why we drastically improved shows that Martin might, finally, be learning and willing to try something different.
- We didn't have 4 in the attacking line, Piroe constantly dropped into that space between the lines, showing for the ball.
Other than a couple of loose ones, one back pass in particular in the 1st half was insane, on the whole Piroe linked up the play well and helped us transition to attack at speed.
I particularly enjoyed a moment in the 2nd half where Martin collared Piroe at a drinks break and talked to him about trying to turn it around the corner for Sorinola (Martin actually acted out what he meant...within 10 minutes Piroe had tried this a couple of times and one in particular came off lovely. Sorinola wasted it off course 
- Grimes and Ntcham and Allen took turns to make forward runs into that space between the lines. All of them, as a result were an attacking threat at times...and we did manage to get overloads in this area with Piroe joining whoever made the run
- We mixed up the play, occasionally curling some longer passes into the channels...
The Latibeaudiere open goal came from one of these situations - Grimes hung it up for Latibeaudiere to challenge, we didn't win the ball cleanly but managed to stab it back to the right where Grimes had followed up his pass with a run in support...Grimes played it first time into Piroe who had space in-between the lines (we had managed to disorganise their defence by actually giving them something to defend!), Piroe turned, shaped to shoot but instead opted to lay it square to Ntcham...this is a fluid, overload situation, players from deep sensing there is an opportunity and getting forward. This is how goals are made...and he shot, the keeper saved, Latibeaudiere somehow managed to sky it.
Positives
- Joey Allen reads the game beautifully and makes the right decision on the ball consistently.
- Allen and Grimes look like they are going to be an excellent partnership
- Naughton brought the ball forward with purpose, committing men, not allowing them to sit deep.
- Darling, very solid citizen when defending and also brings the ball forward well.
- Through balls and balls over the top a-plenty. We asked them questions.
- Manning, actually gives us some go forward down the left...got involved with players inside him, linking up and making stuff happen. Excellent finish.
- Ntcham, seemed to be growing in confidence, on the same wavelength as Piroe & Obafemi. Some lovely weighted passing. A creator.
- We finally created enough chances to consistently win games of football. We scored 2 but it could have been 4 or 5. Create this number of chances consistently and Piroe and Obafemi will see us alright.
- Despite a drop off in the 2nd half, which was disappointing (we mentally switch off and hope we've done enough...this is a theme), we then picked it back up and created a series of decent chances between 60th - 75th minutes. Players were doing what I was talking about on my thread re: our attacking flaws and how to fix them...we were playing with a freedom, a confidence.
Negatives:
- Game management from Martin (his re-jig of the defence and his seeming inability to coach his players how to manage a game of football. By now we should have a plan on how to see out situations like we faced in injury time...why didn't we play keep ball after the 1st goal?
- Sorinola, not up to this level, unfortunately. Wish the lad the best though.
- Fisher, he makes some saves and he is god's gift, to some...nevertheless he continues to make bad decisions and does not dominate his box.
This creates panic among his defence.
- The continuation of the ridiculous goal-kick routine.
- Having every man in our box when defending corners...you have to leave Obafemi up top. This should be obvious. He provides nothing in terms of defending the cross but should provide us an outlet when we clear the ball, either running on to a clearance or at least pressing their defence. Every time we cleared they had all the time in the world to lob it back in again, or knock it down the line to someone to lob it back in from a better angle. This happened throughout the game, we finally paid for it in injury time.
- The subs...Although I agreed with Congreve for Ntcham, I thought, given that Manning was going off and we don't have any other LWBs, a wise sub might have been to switch Grimes to LWB (he has done a good job there before under Potter)...just until the end of this game...then put Cabango at the back and move Naughton into DM role.
We also could have taken 1 striker off and put Fulton into a 3 man midfield.
As we were 2-0 up we could have even finished;
----------------------- Fisher ----------------------------
---------------------- Cabango -------------------------
-------- Wood ------------------------ Darling --------
Sorinola --------- Naughton --------------- Grimes
------------- Fulton -------------- Allen ---------------
--------------------- Congreve -------------------------
--------------------- Obafemi (as the pace outlet)-
...and said to Millwall; 'go on, play through us.'
3 out and out CBs would have been best for the inevitable aerial bombardment...at some point around the 75th minute I leaned into my boy and said; "they are going to put plenty of men in and around the box and bombard us with the long ball".
It was inevitable, they were being outplayed, the only advantages they had was in the air and winning the 2nd ball.
...I have long since given up on Martin thinking like this though, the tactical nous to adjust on the hop seems to be beyond him as well as any imagination re: moving players around as per the situation.
The Final Irony
He is finally trying to make the adjustments to the team that a few of us have been asking for and yet it all seems to be too little too late and at this point (over a year in) there are simply too many problems, problems that Martin is responsible for...
- Game management
- The Goalkeeper
- The substitutions
- An unbalanced squad. Poor squad depth in some areas, too many options in others.
- The falling out with players
- The blaming of players (which seems to be catching on with our fans - it is counter productive...we need our players to perform, we need to build their confidence up, not knock them down.)
The reasons why we threw away these points against Millwall are the same reasons why we have continuously thrown away points under Martin...the irony is that now those who have defended far worse performances, for 10 months-ish, will be those who will finally stick the knife in and bring his Swansea era to an end, just as he was learning something.
https://www.swanseacity.com/video/player/0_fecfirxp [Post edited 17 Aug 2022 2:04]
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| Too little too late? on 01:04 - Aug 19 with 685 views | Dr_Parnassus |
| Too little too late? on 00:32 - Aug 19 by STID2017 |
I think he predicted a top 8 finish, but is saying Martin has to finish in top 10 at least ?
Two different things, surely? |
Too 8 budget, top 8 manager continuity, top 8 salary, top 8 fees spent…
Top 8 is minimum. |  |
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