Millers come to grind us down

[The Blobster]

Rotherham ronight , will this be yet another nail in Martins coffin ?
Rotherham have picked up form recently and are pulling themselves out of the relegation dog fight . Do we have enough to take 3 points ? On paper yes , but can we do it on the pitch ?
Let's hope he goes with an attack of Whitaker and Piroe , with Cooper and Cundle behind them , if so I expect a close 2-1 win .

 

[CroJack]

Four at the back please.

Sondergaard

Manning - Ntcham - Fulton - Sorinola

Grimes - Allen

Cooper - Whittaker - Piroe

Cullen

P.S. Ntcham and Fulton are tall and strong lads and can't be worse than Bingo, Lumber and Honey. Also, Ntcham doesn't need to run much as a centre-back.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

It’s April 1st is it? Ntcham on the field is a joke, at CB that’s hilarious. He is the most contact adverse player we have. Even more so than Piroe who had any trace of nasty surgically removed at birth … he couldn’t bang a drum never mind a defender. And then there’s Fisher, if it wasn’t for the double sided tape on the palms of his gloves he couldn’t catch a cold.

glad to see the Dane in goal. If this kid doesn’t start we need to play KOL in goal, at least with his girth he’d cover more area.

I’ve run out of cliches for the moment.

 

[CroJack]

Ntcham on the field is a joke, at CB that’s hilarious.

Bingo, Lumber and Honey are so poor that even Paterson as a centre-back would be an improvement.

 

[CroJack]

We are joint-worst at conceding goals from set pieces. 15 out of 50 goals are goals conceded from set-pieces. 10 goals are conceded after losing possession in dangerous areas (sloppy passes or dispossessed). That's 25 goals. The vast majority of other 25 goals are goals conceded from crosses. The rest is conceded after goalkeepers' howlers.

@Yankee_Jack , Bingo, Lumber and Honey have to be replaced by someone. Ntcham and Fulton are tall and strong enough to play as centre-backs. Latibeaudiere is too slow. Naughton instead of Ntcham?

 

[Behindthegoal]

I’m sick and tired of it all. Whatever turns up I haven’t the strength to bother.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

We are joint-worst at conceding goals from set pieces. 15 out of 50 goals are goals conceded from set-pieces. 10 goals are conceded after losing possession in dangerous areas (sloppy passes or dispossessed). That's 25 goals. The vast majority of other 25 goals are goals conceded from crosses. The rest is conceded after goalkeepers' howlers.

And the tragedy is that in the last couple of post-match interviews, Martin has acknowledged and owned up to these deficiencies - except the keeper's howlers - and the data has been there for weeks if not months and yet nothing has been done to remedy. We have a special set-piece coach does he only do attacking set-pieces? We have a keeper coach, yet Fisher still flaps at crosses, has no technique when it comes to punching and no ability to command his box despite being over 6'2 and 25 years old. Seriously WTF.

I'm tired of hearing how brilliant the players are, how brave, how much courage. Bollox! We don't have to be brilliant. We have to be basically solid! After over a decade of organized development (say since the age of 10), even the youngest of these players should know how to be technically organized and functional at their position. They don't have to be the next John Charles .... but FFS be the next Monk, or Tate at least. Be functionally solid. Our defenders, all defenders, are going to get beat every now and again but they shouldn't be beating themselves. They shouldn't be playing like they just fell off the back of a turnip truck yesterday. When our own TV color commentators are bemoaning what they're seeing, and they're paid to put lipstick on a pig, it has to be fucking dire.

This supports my long held belief that any player is only as good as the players he trains against. For example, Ash Williams and Chico had to practice against Michu, Graham and then Bony. There's a daily challenge for you. Rangel had to practice against Montero and before him Sinclair and Dyer. That our defenders are being out thought, out maneuvered and making repeated errors implicates either a chronic lack of challenging opposition in training or the training drills are not challenging them enough. Training is a sham.

Flip it around, why are our players in attack not relishing the opportunity to take defenders on ... because they don't practice it enough ... they aren't challenged enough in training and when coming up against "real" defenders in a real game they have no idea what to do and how to go about it. It's not a lack of opportunity to attack the defender, especially out wide, it's that they appear to be reticent and even dead scared to do it. They are so risk averse that they opt for the safe and somewhat lazy pass backwards.

 

[ivoralljack]

This is a game we should win but how often have we said that? Martin must persevere with Cullen who, to me, seems to be a trainee Danny Ings. Danny is a penalty area operator and always gets his goals. His two on Saturday gave Hammers a fighting chance of avoiding the drop but he does like, and need, balls in the box to be properly effective.

Liam is the same. He doesn't do pretty or spectacular goals but, like Ings, sniffs out stuff in the area. And a goal that goes in off knee, elbow or arse counts exactly the same as a 30 yard worldie. I should know because most of mine were like that!!

So, Martin, get the crosses in, thread through balls into the box and make sure that Liam doesn't stray too far from his place of business. There'll be nothing spectacular from him but he'll get the goals we need.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Martin is in the either/or groove when it comes to Cullen and Whitaker.

Pet Piroe is an automatic starter regardless of whether he is at #9 or #8 despite is defending inadequacies ... hell Martin would put him in goal to get him on the team sheet, although he'd be terribly conflicted about dropping Fisher.

Comparing say Cooper to Piroe in that inside forward role is night and day. Cooper is the go to player in that inside forward role and we need to replicate him on the other side for symmetry and effectiveness. Piroe doesn't come close. It would be a stretch of my common sense, but if you're going to have Piroe at #8, then play Ntcham instead .... equally as ineffective defensively but at least Ntcham has a touch of flair from time to time until his juice evaporates.

The two best options at #8 are Fulton or Cundle, complementing Cooper, with Whitaker in between and Cullen up top. But, that's much too obvious.

Let's accept the obvious .... after last season's goal scoring performance ... nobody, absolutely nobody, so much as came sniffing around Piroe during the close season. Even Jason Scotland, all be it via Martinez, went (nice way to fleece that arrogant Wigan owner). Now why is that??? What do the big boys see, what do they know, that we don't. Something wasn't kosher in Denmark or whatever the saying is. Whatever it is, the big boys stayed away, and they would have looked at the color of his shit before it came out of his arse. There was something about Piroe that they didn't rate. And with all the stupid money being splashed around over the last year that's a glaring indictment.

I'd like Walsh, Trundle or Curt to explain all of that ... because they know. They see enough. They know enough. It'll be something subtle but significant.

 

[CroJack]

And the tragedy is that in the last couple of post-match interviews, Martin has acknowledged and owned up to these deficiencies

Unfortunately, he hasn't.
In his last post-match interview he said Swansea were one of the Championship sides that have conceded fewest expected goals against (xGA). He has, just like many others, been fooled by the Opta 'analysts'. He actually thinks our defence, our defending, and our defenders are good!
He thinks it's just a couple of frustrating personal errors and not a managerial failure. He thinks the opposition have scored 50 goals against us from a few low quality chances and he thinks we have been unlucky! And you know what? I don't blame him. Opta are the most respected sport statistics company, so I am pretty sure Martin's analyst(s) use Opta's xGoals model. If not the model then they use Opta's xGoals data.
According to the FootyStats, and their Opta based data, Swansea are third in the Championship when it comes to preventing chances. Opta have told them (and everybody else), that Swansea have so far conceded only 1.27 expected goals per game. Which, again, means Swansea should've conceded approx. 42 goals so far this season.



The above numbers are nonsense. But when Martin shows this data to the club hierarchy and the owners, I bet they say he is doing a great job.

Both Martin and our players keep repeating that the results will come and we, the fans, should be patient.

But the reality is grim and here is how it looked like in the early November.



Not a good read, huh? I stopped creating these charts when I got sick in November, but I am pretty sure we are still one of the worst sides when it comes to expected goals against.

 

[CroJack]

What does the above Opta data mean?

When you have conceded 42 expected and 50 real goals it means the opposition attackers have over-performed. It means they have scored 8 goals more than they should. With other words, our defending have been good, but we have been unlucky. Yeah, right.

My guess is (and this guess is based on my November xGoals numbers) that we have allowed more than 70 xGoals against (I'll give you the exact number soon), which means our defending/style of play is in a shambles. Which, again, means it's not so much the players fault (although they have been poor), but Martin's.

It's Martin who forces our slow defenders to play high and wide allowing the opposition to easily counter attack and score.
It's Martin who doesn't train our players how to defend set-pieces.
It's Martin who forces our players to pass the ball from the back when under pressure.

When it comes to attacking, we are sixth most scoring side, seventh for shots per game, third for shots on target per game, and I guess we are in the top ten when it comes to expected goals. Of course, this could and should be better, but we don't lose our games because we can't score, we lose them because we can't defend. We've had only six clean sheets in 33 games.

 

[CroJack]

 

[CroJack]

3-4-2-1

Fisher

Cabango - Wood - Latibeaudiere

Manning - Grimes - Allen - Sorinola

Cooper - Piroe

Whittaker

 

[The Blobster]

So the idiot sticks with Fisher , at least Darling drops to the bench .
Looks like a back 3 again so expect us to be woefully short of pace out wide in defence, this manager has learned nothing from his previous erroneous selections , I can see another catastrophic defeat on the cards with this starting 11, we are not strong enough in midfield without Fulton, Allen can't do it on his own and Grimes has been ineffective and sloppy lately.

 

[The Blobster]

I think Piroe will play up front with Cooper and Whitaker behind him .

 

[Yankee_Jack]

We now have 42 points with 13 games left. The lowest bar over the past few years for 6th position is 70 points, typically a lot more ... say 77 points.

To make the playoffs, we need to garner another 30 points from 13 games, or slightly better than 2.3 points per game. At our peak during the streak earlier in the season ... P8 W6 D1 L1 ... we were running at 2.375 points per game. Nothing barring an act of God, is going to produce that output for the 13 games left.

So the season is basically dead.

The highest number of points required to avoid relegation in the last few years was 49, typically 42 is good enough. As the saying goes, we're 99% safe, but the other 1% could swing it.

For me, this means it's time to experiment. Set aside those players that are contractually out - the likes of Manning and Lati - and the loanees that will disappear - the likes of Cundle and Sorinola. Assume Obafemi doesn't screw up his big move to the Prem and is gone. Assume Naughton is renewed for one season.

We now focus on the new keeper, Naughton at RB, Grimes at LB (where he played quite a few games under Potter), drop Fulton alongside Allen, play Congreve at #8 etc, and blood other U21s on the top end of their performance charts (time to see who's man enough to play the man's game). I'd like to bring Cooper back from Forest Green and play him, but that's just going to mess up a good club-club relationship and since Cooper's been playing a string of games this needs to continue. We have to play two CBs ... so Cabango and Wood.

In other words, let's start next season today! The clubs loses little money if anything by finishing 21st versus finishing 7th - as best as I can figure out. Exactly how much worse can the Club perform if it took this approach starting today. In the last 12 games (since World Cup return), we have P12 W3 D2 L7. A total of11 points out of a possible 36 or 31%, 0.92 points per game. Carrying this forward over 13 games, we earn another 12 points.

Worse still, over the last 6 games, P6 W1 D1 L4. 4 points out of 18 or 22%, 0.33 points per game. Carrying this forward over 13 games, we earn another 4 points. We get no eager anticipation. We don't get to see new players busting a gut to show their value. We get to see two tiresome FBs who want out, and so on.

What have we got to lose. What Martin has been trying to do is not working. It can't not work any worse. Other clubs watching our videos can't get any smarter than they already are. It's time to mess them all up and shuffle the deck.

From a business perspective .... our next season has to begin today.

 

[CroJack]

So the idiot sticks with Fisher , at least Darling drops to the bench .
Looks like a back 3 again so expect us to be woefully short of pace out wide in defence, this manager has learned nothing from his previous erroneous selections , I can see another catastrophic defeat on the cards with this starting 11, we are not strong enough in midfield without Fulton, Allen can't do it on his own and Grimes has been ineffective and sloppy lately.

Spot on. Lati and Cabango are both slow. Ogbene and Hugill are going to rip them apart.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

He's sitting out Fulton

It's either a silly 3+2 with Lati in the 3, or a back 4, with Sorinola, Piroe and Cooper behind Whitaker.

 

[KVetch]

I have no idea which way the wind is blowing today, Martin has made comments about Arteta and Arsenal losing 8 in a row before they turned it around. I personally think it's time to bench Piroe and see what Morgan and Liam can do. They're faster and can test the defense more. Piroe can place them once in awhile but he's not been effective this season.

3-2 nervy match as always, Whittaker is getting 1 more.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Stadium is empty tonight. Must be a good darts match on tv