Michael Duff seemed to have lost his grip on reality this afternoon when summarising yet another dismal Swansea City performance as the clubs current head coach. When questioned on the forthcoming south Wales derby he seemed to think it was just another game.
And more poignantly he signalled his complete lack of understanding as to what this next game is all about. In a throw away statement on par if not worse than Dave Jones made when he was Cardiff manager he said the game wasn’t the ‘be all and end all’ Well, for those supporters with an investment in the club, be that travelling across the country notching up the most miles of any fan in the league or spending a considerable lump of their income doing so, this statement was ridiculous.
It’s completely disrespectful.
Now, there will be fans who will agree, but I would hazard a guess the majority won’t, social media is already in a form of anti Duff meltdown. The comparison of ‘two derby day defeats’ would most certainly pale in to insignificance if come May the Swans were promoted. However, there’s a bit of an issue with that. After five games there has been nothing to indicate the head coach has the initiative to inspire and train his charges to a level where they would ever be in with a shout of that.
At this moment in time.
Duff even admits that himself. " We went a goal up, and then lost every header, we lost every dual. I thought it was poor, it was weak. We lost every tackle. We moved the ball too slowly. We just need to be more aggressive with or without the ball” In another startling admission and bearing in mind we are talking about professional coaches and players who are paid way above the best wages in the area ( in most cases ) Duff added, "We need to work in the basics of the game, before we start talking about formations, and rotations and all this sort of stuff. Because when we did have the ball we didn’t pass it particularly well anyway”
You can see he is annoyed, but a dismissive comment on the biggest club game in the Welsh football calendar hasn’t done a lot to endear him to the majority of the Swans support. I’ve seen fans scratching around for a few pounds to get to games, I’ve seen fans hitching across the country to follow this team and they deserve better than that.
A whole lot more.
This game isn’t the Gloucestershire ‘hamlet derby’ or even some insignificant inter county rivalry in the Burnley area. We have often said that managers new to the Welsh football scene don’t grasp the enormity of this particular game, and Duff has players, many of whom haven’t experienced it either. If that’s his attitude it will be six games without a win come shut tap on September 16th. No Swans fan wants to hear this defeatist attitude going on to the biggest game of the season, whether that is so far, or until the two teams meet again next year.
Many Swans fans are simmering anyway after todays defeat to an average Bristol City side, to hear this nonsense on the back of that loss has sent many to boiling point.
Unbelievable.