2004 - The Year Of The Swan?

I'm writing this a day after our entertaining, if not heart stopping, 3-2 home victory over fellow promotion contenders and league newcomers Yeovil Town. This was our last game of 2003 and it's certainly been a rollercoaster ride, can 2004 be any brighter?

Once again the man to save the day for us was the one and only Lee "Magic daps" Trundle. The guy is out of this world and is one of a kind, he's been injured, suspended and is still on 16 goals for the season, imagine how many he would have to his name if he was ever-present? We've been looking for a 20+ goal striker for years, since Bob Latchford in the 82/83 season when he scored 20 in the league and now we have finally found the man. Maybe he could even break Cyril Pearce's record of 35 league goals and 5 cup goals totalling to 40 goals, in the 1931-1932 season. Surely the bargain of the summer!!?

Right, back to the purpose of this article, back in the summer we signed a host of new players, Brian Murphy, Leon Hylton, Leon Britton, Lee Trundle, Brad Maylett, Karl Connolly, Andy Robinson and Izzy Iriekpen. It was like a breath of fresh air and we started the season off so brightly, winning 4 of our 5 league games. Half way point of the season and we have played 24 games, we have had 11 victories (7 of those coming at the Vetch), drawn 6 and tasted defeat 7 times. We have scored 37 goals and conceded 30, which leaves us with a goal difference of 7 and mustered up 39 points that is 10 points less then we had all through the last campaign!, Putting last season into perspective then that is not bad for a team that just scraped survival. But saying that , with the team we currently have, boasting the quality of Trundle, Britton, Maylett, Martinez, Robinson, Connolly and Iriekpen (just to name a few) we would expect to be where we are, irrespective of what happened last season. With 22 games remaining, if we can keep that up then we should finish on around about 78 points. Is that good enough to achieve our aim, which is promotion albeit automatic or via the play offs? Personally i think it's not, considering the tightness of the league this year, so we will just have to work harder in 2004 to make sure we don't fall at the final hurdle.

To be fair Brian Flynn hasn't been able to pick from a full squad since early in the season therefore making it hard for the team to settle down without having to change all the time through injuries. With all our players back now Flynn has the luxury to pick from a full squad and maybe we will re-capture our early season form which saw us top the division? With tricky games against Table toppers Oxford United (home), Bury (away), Cheltenham (Home), Boston (away) and Mansfield (away) all coming in January then surely that will test us to see if we can keep up with the pace. Lets not forget that we have the small mater of a 3rd round FA cup clash with Macclesfield Town at the vetch on Saturday, a game which we cant afford to lose if we want to challenge a big gun in the 4th round. Lets hope in 3/4 months time we are celebrating promotion to division 2 and witnessing a memorable FA cup run, because the sooner we get out of this League the better.

One more thing though, i do honestly think we have enough quality to get promotion but we just have to have faith in the team to keep getting results on the pitch albeit a 1-0 scrappy win or an entertaining 5 goal thriller like we witnessed on Sunday! We need to improve our away form and maintain our home form and if we do that, then i can't see why we can't achieve our aim. So let's all get down the Vetch and keep supporting the boys. Surely we are not asking for too much?

WHO ARE WE???????

PS: I think every Swans fan will be with me when I say, Good luck Alan Tate, thanks for your time down here and hopefully you will be wearing a swans shirt week in week out, very shortly "Once a jack, always a jack"

JACKARMY!!!!!

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