Our form

[Victoria Swan]

Just in case no one has noticed (!) our current form is atrocious. Over the last five games we are 21/24 in the Championship and over the last six games we are 20/24. How the hell are we still in the top ten?! In the space of a few weeks I have gone from looking forward to watching every game to dreading watching. Given that I would have to wake up at 3:30 am to catch the S.Wales derby on SwansTV Live this Sunday I think, for the first time in years, I will skip watching my Swans live this weekend.

 

[ivoralljack]

Yes, VS, as a few of us have been saying it's relegation form. Other teams are improving whilst we are going backwards at a rate of knots in terms of performance. It isn't just a case of being edged out in a game where we've played well, it's more that the players don't seem to have a clue about what they're doing and even the most basic skills eg short passing, seem to have deserted them. This is clearly down to the manager, training/ coaching and instead of being Mr Nice Guy, which he often lays claim to be, he needs to start laying down the law. I can think of quite a few managers who would put the fear of God into his players if they dared turn in performances such as we've witnessed lately.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

I'm looking for three things against Cardiff: a) a recognition that this a match where blood, sweat and tears are required and 100% is left on the field; b) an aspiration to technical excellence; c) a selection and tactical setup that represents our best XI and not a set of eleven 1's or some split along those lines.

(a) and (b) are primarily on the players to assert individual professionalism and leadership. (a) and (b) are also on the coaches to ensure that nothing but this is first and foremost on players minds. (c) is all about Cooper .... does he really get the significance of the match, understand the streak that he initiated, recognize the remedy required and attempt to put a fix in place.

If any of this is missing Birch had better take note because there will never be another match where reality will be so starkly exposed.

This is not Barnsley away (which we should have won) ... this is Cardiff at home. Mess this up and Cooper had better be able to swim because he's going to be hounded into the bay.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Today’s match saw the a return to common sense on the part of Cooper. All of my criteria were met. Let’s hope that the likes of Toshack senior (sitting next to Birch), Curt and León will pound this past Cooper’s blank expression after the match. We have a few good #9s, and although a team or Tate’s has been chorus of times past, we only need to play one #9 at a time.

We routinely play midweek games and then Christmas chaos comes .... much better to swap Ayew and Borja and let them go balls out in their games with time for recovery after each. If we play a consistent shape then we can swap them with out harm. Same with Routs/Dyer and Peterson/Garrick/McKay, let them play hard and fresh.

 

[CroJack]

Today’s match saw the a return to common sense on the part of Cooper. All of my criteria were met.

If "common sense" means Ayew up front, two real wingers, Celina as ATM and fighting for 90 minutes, then I agree. If "common sense" also means style of play, then Cooper has lost his mind. It was the worst game this season when it comes to pass accuracy. Only 64%. That's not how we are supposed to play. We hoofed it a little bit less than Cardiff did. I can accept it only because it was a fierce derby and the players were high on adrenalin, but in future we shouldn't be playing like this. Any other team than Cardiff would have punished us.

Cooper is also talking crap when he says in his post-match interview that we controlled the game. No, we didn't. Cardiff controlled the game by forcing us to play their 'style' of football.

Positives

- Pace up front
- Quick transitions and counter-attacks
- Routs' creativity
- Fighting and physicality (17 successful tackles out of 23 attempted; 12 fouls and 9 of them in the Cardiff's half)
- Number of shots (19 total and 5 shots on target)

Negatives

- Hoofing instead of keeping the ball
- Poor passing and pass accuracy
- Ineffectivity in front of goal
- Fouling in dangerous areas and allowing Cardiff to attack us from set-pieces
- Dispossessed 17 times

 

[Yankee_Jack]

@CroJack ... as always, your analysis is insightful and surprising.

"Common Sense" for me means your first definition "Ayew up front, two real wingers, Celina as ATM .....". Or Borja at #9 for that matter, but specifically only one #9 on the field at a time.

The passing accuracy is surprising. Are you saying this was our worst passing exhibition in a while, worst than against Brentford and Barnsley?

I agree that Cooper is talking crap, he usually just mumbles standard platitudes and rarely if ever says anything informative or insightful - I rarely listen to them. There were long periods in the second half when we dominated the game. And Cardiff, as is Warnock's want, tried to push us to be more like them than we would want, I think we still dominated the game in the second half. We should have buried the game with the chances that we had, incredibly bad decisions were being made. However, the last few minutes of the match Ayew and Routs took command in the corner and killed time and the game ... which was good to see.

 

[CroJack]

The passing accuracy is surprising. Are you saying this was our worst passing exhibition in a while, worst than against Brentford and Barnsley?

In a while? I think it was our worst passing accuracy in the last 15 years.

I disagree with you and some other posters that our poor spell has been the result of our poor performances. The performances have been ok, but the results haven't. Why? Lack of concentration and sloppiness. Especially defensivelly. When we analyse game by game we can see that our underlying numbers have been good.
At this time last season we averaged 9 shots and 2 shots on target. This season we average 14.1 shots and 4.5 shots on target. Cooper is a huge improvement on Potter in terms of attacking potency. It's another story that our forwards don't convert the chances we create. But that's not Cooper's fault.

Laudrup once said: "I can teach my players how to come into opposition third, but when they are there then it's up to them."

What I am trying to say? Criticising Cooper for our performances is not fair. He can't be responsible for Grimes not committing a foul when a foul is necessary to prevent opposition to score a last minute goal. Etc., etc...

But criticising Cooper for the players he chooses in his starting XI has been more than fair. Swanselona style of play requires PACE up front and TWO WINGERS who know how to attack the box and who know our pass & move. We simply need quick transitions and counter-attacks. Laudrup's first game in charge when we beat QPR 5:0 is the prime example of Swansea counter-attacking and quick transitions.

We played our best football ever when we played THREE wingers and Michu up front against WBA under Laudrup.

So, what we should criticise Cooper for is lack of pace in the starting XI. Borja and Bidwell should not be playing as regular starters. They are simply too slow.

And not playing Routs is criminal. He is so skilful, creative and clever player that he should be the first name on the sheet when Cooper selects his starting XI.

Our performance against Brentford was not bad. We conceded 3 goals, but we could have scored 3 as well. The only difference was that Brentford converted their chances, and we didn't. And hats off for the two goals they scored. We can't blame Cooper for Benrahma's beautiful curling shot and another beautiful shot from 25 yards. Their third was an unlucky own goal which was a result of a sloppy pass and a counter-attack.

Swansea stats against Brentford:



We had more shots, more possession, better pass accuracy (84%), more dribbles, more tackles...
They were more effective in front of goal. They scored 3, we scored 0. Shit happens.

Here is our passing accuracy against Brentford:



And here against Cardiff:



The difference is obvious. We didn't keep the ball on the ground against Cardiff and our goalkeeper and back four hoofed it at every opportunity. Do we want to play like this? I don't think so. We have to go back to our passing game (pass & move) we have to play with pace, we have to start converting our chances and we have to erradicate sloppiness and stupid deffensive errors. Amd we have to play with two dedicated wingers. Peterson, Routs, Dyer, Garrick, Kalulu...even McKay. We have many options to chose from.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

The numbers are stark ... so what do you put the dominance against Cardiff versus the weakness against Brentford down to ... in a nutshell. Dhanda and Fulton were hooked at halftime but I don't think that the players that were introduced performed any better in the passing category ... did they.

 

[CroJack]

The numbers are stark ... so what do you put the dominance against Cardiff versus the weakness against Brentford down to ... in a nutshell. Dhanda and Fulton were hooked at halftime but I don't think that the players that were introduced performed any better in the passing category ... did they.

First of all, Brentford are by miles a better team than Cardiff. In my opinion, we deserved a draw against Brentford and we deserved a victory against Cardiff.

You know, a lot of this is psycological. Imagine we didn't score against Cardiff and Cardiff scored from a couple of chances they had. What would our fans say? A terrible performance! Imagine we scored against Brentford and they didn't. What would our fans say? A great performance! But if we want to be serious and realistic, then we have to look at the underlying numbers when we judge our performances.

 

[ivoralljack]

It's strange the perspective that one gets BEFORE analysing the stats. To me we were crap against Brentford, disjointed, inaccurate and downright sloppy. I didn't imagine that, I was there and saw it with my own eyes and I know what I'm looking at. Even Steve Cooper decried that performance!! Against Cardiff I thought we were more fluent, more rhythmical and played with better tempo. But the stats @CroJack has produced fly in the face of that and can't be ignored because facts are facts and those were statistical facts. As ever, CJ, thanks for the interesting perspective.

 

[Borini]

We were pants against Brentford second to everything. Never seen such a rubbish performance, stats do not show how awful we were... Did you see the game or just run the stats? I love your stats but that was the worst performance I have seen in the liberty.

 

[Behindthegoal]

I'm not gifted on the analytical side of things. I go to the match to be entertained, hopefully with a win.
Two things occur to me that might explain the poor passing stats.
When you're defending a high ball, so high it probably has ice on it, your best option is to head in the hopeful direction of a team mate. 50/50 chance?
Our moves within their box were very intricate, demanding almost 100% accuracy and also relying on the receiver working out where he is expected to be. Sorry guys, you get poor stats, if you want to improve your figures you'd better start putting in more back passes.
Anyway, we won, and confidence is THE KEY FACTOR.

 

[CroJack]

Did you see the game or just run the stats? I love your stats but that was the worst performance I have seen in the liberty.

To me we were crap against Brentford, disjointed, inaccurate and downright sloppy. I didn't imagine that, I was there and saw it with my own eyes and I know what I'm looking at

After the Brentford game I had exactly the same feelings. And that's perfectly normal. We are passionate fans and when we watch Swans games we do that with heart and emotions.

But then...the very next day I made a cup of coffee and watched the replay without being emotionally involved. The analytical mind took over. And like many times before, the conclusion was totally different.

You all know that I don't care about irrelevant stats like possession in our own half, backward passes etc. Even shots are irrelevant if they are not quality shots. I'm not a stats fanatic. But I do care about chances, and we created better quality chances than Brentford. That's a fact. Artistic impression is not what's important in football - and I do agree that Brentford's football looked better than ours - chances and goals are important. Brentford looked more dangerous, I agree again, but in reality they were not more dangerous than the Swans. Benrahma scored from a curling shot, Peterson tried the same thing from the same position and missed, but both chances have the same quality and the same value.

With other words, Brentford performance can't be better than ours because we created more quality chances. Perhaps we should first agree on a definition of performance? Scoring goals is individual performance, creating chances is team performance. Brentford just had better executioners, and their forwards performed better individually than ours. Every time we gave the ball away in dangerous areas they scored. Every time they gave the ball away in dangerous areas we didn't score.

Sometimes I really don't understand what football fans mean when they talk about performances. Every time we lose a game at the Liberty I hear the same song on Twitter: "This was our worst performance ever at the Liberty!" The same happened after the Brentford game. But the truth is that this game was not our worst performance ever, not even this season. In my eyes poor performances are when we don't have a single shot on target.

Watch this again and see how many chances we created.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Playing like City but getting relegated is no way to go through a season.

Neither is capitulating at home. Cooper’s arse has been saved by two things: we are still joint second because of the parity in the league; we beat Cardiff.

Laudrup, one of the best managers we have ever had, was fired for a series of results that was better than Cooper’s while under the dire circumstances of key players injured and suspended, and dealing with a back stabbing bastard and his minions in the squad.

Cooper is a very lucky man. Cooper lost the plot under the best of circumstances. Has the plot been placed back in his hands, does he recognize it, and does he have sufficient gray matter to carry it forward remains to be seen. For me, he’s on double secret probation.

When a manager is so lost and thinks that he is so out of options that he has to “phone a friend”, and has a result reverts to something he was doing successfully but stopped doing, we have to be very concerned. Either we are all bloody geniuses and Cooper reads this forum, or somebody else picked the team for him, but the team and shape selected against Cardiff was one that we all saw as the best choice a mile off and three games back.

 

[CroJack]

When a manager is so lost and thinks that he is so out of options that he has to “phone a friend”,

He asked Rodgers, Britton and Curt for advice and they told him the same thing we agreed here: Add some pace, play Ayew on top, and play two dedicated wingers. He obviously listened to the advice, which is a good sign - he is not as stubborn and thick as some of us thought.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

He asked Rodgers, Britton and Curt for advice and they told him the same thing we agreed here: Add some pace, play Ayew on top, and play two dedicated wingers. He obviously listened to the advice, which is a good sign - he is not as stubborn and thick as some of us thought.

As yet to be determined .... heeding the advice when he's shooting blanks is one thing, but does he now have the common sense to realize what works and doesn't. Will he retain the advice or revert. The lucky boy still has the chance of automatic promotion to play for.

 

[CroJack]

As yet to be determined .... heeding the advice when he's shooting blanks is one thing, but does he now have the common sense to realize what works and doesn't. Will he retain the advice or revert. The lucky boy still has the chance of automatic promotion to play for.

We'll see in the next game if he plays Celina on the left and Ayew on the right flank with Borja up front.