Boxing Day, a traditional sporting day out for hundreds of thousands of people pursuing an outside interest, be that in any form. This Boxing Day, which for those who get their days confused at this time of the year is on Thursday.
And at 3pm on Thursday Swansea City face one of the form teams in the Championship.
This is a home game for the Swans, but over recent times it doesn’t really matter where they play things are troubled, and nobody on the face of it seems keen to fight for our clubs shirt. It has gone from a one off issue to a temporary loss of form to a real issue. That ‘issue’ has highlighted at Hull City on Saturday where we saw a beleaguered Swansea City unwilling to challenge or be involved in a game of football. It was disgraceful, and at no point from what we have seen this season was that anything but a reflection of the club off the pitch projected on to the field of play.
We won’t go into that today, but we will do.
We still have Ben Cabango and Harry Darling unable or unwilling to agree to extended contracts at the Swans. That’s not as much of an issue now as it was, the Swans under the now ‘booted’ Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan denied improved contract talks and derisory offers were made. This affected the morale of those players who now are keen to see what the wider world offers. When the better known players in any dressing room are affected that travels to everyone, and nobody can state that conversations between them all haven’t taken place. They have.
So, now we look towards our Boxing Day visitors, Queens Park Rangers. A team very much on the up. If anyone has any doubts see their form guide over the last six matches below.
As you can see the R’s are the most improved in the Championship, even ahead of Burnley on current form. Fourteen points from eighteen is some improvement based on their previous performances. In fact it is noticeable exactly when results turned round for the R’s. After a defeat at Leeds some forty four days ago they haven’t lost a game in their last seven fixtures. What head coach, Marti Cifuentes has done has been nothing short of remarkable.
Swans head coach, Luke Williams has delivered some public take downs on his players and their effort and performance in recent weeks. Nothing they didn’t deserve either, there is real evidence of honesty from Williams at times. However, in Bianchini, Vipotnik, Peart-Harris, Eom, Franco and especially Ronald we have players who are either struggling for form or who are simply not good enough. That lack of ability permanently or temporary ensures players like Josh Tymon, Josh Key, Matt Grimes and Liam Cullen work harder and under increased pressure which leads to errors in their game. Quite simply Swansea City do not possess the players to be anything other than marginally successful now and again. To win or lose all their games by one goal (bar one) in the league this season may indicate a side just inches away from success but that can also mean failure.
Interestingly the Swans have scored twenty four goals this season from three hundred and thirty six ‘shots at goal’ this season and that’s fairly high as other sides with far less have more goals. That signals the problem at Swansea, an inability to score goals or have the ability to convert what is a very decent amount of shots so far this season.
The story of the season ?
Two home games now face the Swans, two winnable games and these are the test now. First up QPR then Luton Town on Sunday, kick off 3pm. These games for us will determine the competence in not only those Swansea players who clearly couldn’t give a professional damn over recent times and of course Luke Williams. It has to click, it has to happen because as in life these things won’t wait forever.
More news on this game later.