The Swans dropped to eighteenth in the championship table after a 2-1 home defeat to Ipswich Town yesterday at the Swansea.Com Stadium. That’s just one win for Luke Williams in seven attempts and yesterday post match he did seem rather angry.
There is of course a reason for his anger, and that is his team keep losing. Since he took over as head coach the form guide has looked far worse than it did under Alan Sheehan. The performances seem to be worse but it’s more than likely they are pretty much the same, and of course there’s this insistence on playing in a certain way. Russell Martin had the same methodology but I would say it was somewhat different to what Luke Williams is attempting now. Both of these managers enjoy a a possession based team performance though.
At times for Martin, and as we are seeing without improvement now there were so many frustrating games to watch. At Southampton Russell Martin has proven his ethos works, but with one real and obvious marker, one which Luke Williams could maybe take note.
Square pegs in round holes just so not work.
It could be people will disagree, they may see something in the games Williams has taken charge of that inspires them ? Nowadays Russell Martin has the players to fit his desired style of play at Southampton, it’s clear it works, you can’t argue with that. Clearly with this current era of coaches running matters headed up by Luke Williams, once again we are in a waiting game for improvement. However, it’s a waiting game with missing thousands off the gate each home game.
Luke has a huge job on his hands without the tools he had at Notts County (a striker who can score goals) or a squad overflowing with confidence through winning games of football.
Luke Williams doesn’t seem to have the players to compete with those top level sides in the Championship, we’ve seen that recently. He admits that as well. The only comfort is these defeats of late have come against Leeds, Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton. The anomaly was Plymouth but these fixtures count towards five of Williams seven games in charge. He has seen his side win away at Hull last weekend and draw at Birmingham City. From seven games in the league that’s four points. For me there has to be some level of flexibility now for what may lay ahead. The next batch of games are being described as more ‘winnable’. You would expect if the Swans play as they did and have so far then that belief is correct ?
The main thing is I don’t see any more winnable fixtures above than at any point this season. I see two very difficult ‘derby’ games, an away game at Watford and then possibly a couple more winnable fixtures. With the Swans struggling to get out of the thirties points wise there’s little there that tells me that is easy. Then there are the final fixtures of this season.
Possibly a little more there to be positive about. What the Swans need, and let’s be honest we didn’t want to be talking about this at this stage of the season is to match the average safe points total. Avoiding relegation is now the seasons goal. That is forty five points on average over the last ten seasons or so. Last season Reading went down on forty four points, they had a points reduction though, and had they not it would have been Cardiff City. At the end of the season before that Peterborough went down on thirty seven points. Well, it looks like this season will require a lot more than that. Queens Park Rangers are on thirty two points with a lot of games to go. There can be no applied maths to this at all, it’s quite simple get over fifty points as quick as possible and breathe …
Personally I think the Swans will do it, there’s some ability in the squad to do so, and of course a whole raft of injuries, the like of which we have never seen before. The off the field disparity will always be there with majority owners who say some of the most incredibly daft things - whether it be from across the sea or by way of this years current incumbent. That affects the attendances and faith in the club as much as the results.
It’s the way it’s been this season, another gradual decline and another year of hope destroyed. I would imagine the ownership will wait for Luke Williams to get it right and look like he is getting somewhere before they sack him. That’s their unusual pathway.
Watch the highlights Swans v Ipswich below.
Angry Luke below.
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