...
I don't see Swanselona style as a style of possession and passing for the sake of possession and passing. I see it as the best of the best Swansea used to play, and that includes both high pressing, passing with tempo, fast movement, direct passing, dribbles, triangles, quick tranistions and imagination. This is how Barcelona under Pep used to play, and this is how Manchester City under Pep play now. And if you want, it's how Bielsa's Leeds play.
This is correct IMO. However ...
Swanselona is dead - RIP. Not because it's a style that reached an evolutionary dead end and become extinct. It's because the life has been coached out of it. Started with Monk. Ended with Cooper. Tonight, when in possession, we lacked patience, movement, tempo, and quality ... and when you lack patience, you hoof it. Too often we would make 3 or 4 passes then somebody - typically Grimes - would attempt a 30+ yard boot down the field most often to our #9 and there it would be lost. Swanselona means you play with patience, you OWN the ball, you make the other team chase shadows and then through quality and movement you create an opening by shifting the other team and wearing down their cohesion and then go through that opening. In 2011/12 we went into Craven Cottage, won 3-0, and strung sequence after sequence of 30+ passes together. We were described as "easy on the eye". We didn't pass for the sake of passing, we passed and moved to OWN the ball. We were poised and patient, created and capitalized on opportunities against a Fulham team that had no idea whatsoever how to combat it - and there were some very good players on that Fulham team and a good manager on the touchline.
Now our patience sucks. The players are far too eager to move forward when the opportunities are just not there. Tonight Fulham showed patience and poise in possession. They moved it around, cycled and recycled, and made our more forward players chase shadows. This created space for Fulham in our defensive third and they then moved and passed efficiently in those areas.
The old adage more haste less speed ... we're too full of haste at all the wrong times and lack the patience and poise, as a result we gift back the ball through unforced errors. And, I have to say we lack the stamina to do the work that tempo requires.
What "we", i.e. Cooper, and Clement before him as an example, try is to attack quickly ... all very well and fine but if you can't pass 5 yards and move to support and create those spaces then you're sure as hell not going to have the quality to pass 30 yards nor the quality required to break and attack with speed. It's simply not possible in a match situation against real competition if you haven't mastered the pass and move over shorter distances.
Swanselona was a platform, not the end but a means to the end. Swanselona was
programmed into every player by Martinez and then reinforced and more advanced styles layered on top by those that followed - Sousa, Rogers, Laudrup. It turned players like Gower that we acquired in the lower leagues into short term functional players in the Prem. It allowed us to survive in the Prem during that first season plus the addition of Sig. Laudrup's acquisitions raised squad quality and the likes of Gower that had to work 110% to be sufficient were made redundant.
Swanselona is dead - RIP. We now hoof it ... and we suck at that because we don't have the players for it. And for all of his claims during the interview, Cooper has not resuscitated Swanselona, he has not built on the foundation laid down by Potter, he has created no platform on which to tactically dabble as matches and opposition demand. Potter had a system on which he could tactically dabble ... Cooper ... I give in.