Luton Away

How many goals are we going to concede tomorrow?

  • 1

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 2 40.0%
  • 5

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    5
  • Poll closed .

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Martin has placed himself between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

having evangelized Martin’s Madness for almost two seasons, for a variety of reasons we all know by rote, it’s in a death spiral. Team after team are now clinically exposing its vulnerabilities and handing him his shit.

Martin knows this. Each succeeding post-match interview is becoming more tortured and yet honest, a man looking into a mirror and seeing it turn ugly. Vulture reporters are gathering. He’s admitting more and more.

having committed the cardinal coaching sin of forcing his players into a system instead of a crafting a system for his players, he’s fucked. Against Rotherham we saw the crazy happen, we were trying to play keep ball very deep in our own half with Fisher as the pivot and with no way out …. We didn’t have the crispness of pass. We didn’t have the movement. We didn’t have a long ball. 🤦🏻‍♂️. Only a total nutter would endorse this. Even the Club’s color commentators are punctuating their commentary with criticism.

Martin knows this.

Martin also knows how to fix it. He’s not a total idiot.

But he can’t fix it because it would mean going against the religion he’s been peddling for two years, which I don’t think is the hard place. The hard place is how does he explain it. How does he say it and sell it to the players so that they don’t rebell, jump ship, and perhaps more importantly adjust into it and execute. He could blarney us and the reporters, but how does he get the fix on the field.

increasingly he’s realized where he is … and he has no way out.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Tomorrow is not about the result. It’s about execution. Can Martin put a sane XI on the field and just let them play. Can Martin admit that next season has begun, and presuming he’s still here, start preparing for it.
 

CroJack

Key Player
Martin also knows how to fix it. He’s not a total idiot.
Are you sure?

I think he is convinced his style of football has been hugely effective and what is happening to Swansea is just a bad luck and individual mistakes. The other day he mentioned we are third best in the Championship when it comes to xGoalsAgainst (allowed chances against).

Also, during the 18 months he's managed Swansea he hasn't addressed the lack of pace in the squad, especially at the back and in the defensive midfield.

Not to mention his constant moaning about the young and inexperienced squad while at the same time he wants to sign another 20 years old player.
 
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Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Are you sure?
....
I'm trying to be generous and respectful. If he doesn't then he's not fit for purpose. At least, he's struggling with the reality: results versus whatever BS data he's working with. Perhaps he should rely on his own eyes and forego the data. We don't have data but we can clearly see the same nonsense time and again.

He's admitted in post-match about the goals they concede from set pieces and player mistakes etc. So, internally I think / hope that he's recognized the key vulnerabilities. He should know how to address those although it can be argued that all of this is old news to any casual long time observer, it should be clearly portrayed in the data and by video, and so either he's ineffective as a coach, he hasn't tried (criminal negligence), or the players and system are fighting the correction ... i.e. there are intrinsic conflicts between the players, the system, and the vulnerabilities that fight the corrective process.

The Luton match is going to be yet another display of the truth. Nobody can hide tomorrow or for the remainder of the season. Every opponent is now fully equipped or as equipped as they can be to expose the vulnerabilities. As we have seen, it doesn't take coaching rocket science or a top team to do this.

I don't think youth and "inexperience" play into it. None of these players fell off the back of a turnip truck yesterday or were drafted into play from the local senior league. Every player as had the benefit of 10+ years of coaching and development. If they are not good enough, they shouldn't be on our books.

As for being on our books: regarding Darling, for example, I posted a link in another thread to the cup tie between us and Cambridge from a few seasons ago - see here:
. Darling played in defense for Cambridge. We won something like 6-0, with it being 4 or 5-0 at half-time. Watch Darling on each of the goals. Explain to me please why we paid good money for this player. He doesn't demonstrate the traits of a strong player in an out matched defense.
 

CroJack

Key Player
Darling played in defense for Cambridge. We won something like 6-0, with it being 4 or 5-0 at half-time. Watch Darling on each of the goals. Explain to me please why we paid good money for this player.
Darling was 20 years old and he was playing against Surridge, Routledge, Peterson etc.

And we didn't pay good money for the Oxford Darling, we paid good money for MK Dons Darling, a ball-playing centre-back who scored 7 goals in 2021/22 season.

Actually, Darling has not been terribly poor for us. Apart from Manning, half of all other Swansea players have been mediocre, and the other half have been poor this season. Here are the Whoscored ratings:

Ratings.jpg

And Sofa Score ratings:

Screenshot from 2023-03-03 19-10-00.jpg


@Yankee_Jack Do you remember Rhys Williams? He had 9 appearances in the Premier League and 6 in the Champions League for Liverpool in 2020/21, then he came to Swansea in 2021/22 and totally flopped. This season he's been loaned out to Blackpool and his rating on Whoscored is 6.40, which is poor. The vast majority of these young players are inconsistent and if you want them to blossom, then they often need to be surrounded by a couple of experienced senior players to guide and support them.

I am pretty sure that Darling, Wood and Cabango would look much better if we abandoned that stupid passing from the back when under pressure.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
I don't have much regard for those player ratings. Regardless of which vintage of Darling we have, I remember seeing Cooper playing with far more poise and confidence at 20, and I don't like the way Darling defends. His positioning in general and with respect to the opposing forward he is marking is less than ideal etc. Not my go-to CB.

And I do remember Rhys Williams - bit of a damp squib for us, but never given much of a chance. Experience is great when it amplifies talent, but Darling's performance against us in that cup tie showed an alarming lack of poise and sadly little talent.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
I might have read this incorrectly but Piroe's goals/assists work out at 1 every 209.61 minutes. Cullen in comparison has 1 every 93.16 minutes. Given that many of his minutes are scrag ends at the end of games, where he's had bugger all chance of doing much, I still fail to see why Martin won't give him a consistent run. I'm not suggesting that Piroe should be dropped for Cullen but Piroe himself has said that he really enjoys playing in tandem with Liam. I think it's about time that Martin rejigged his tactics so that he can play them together for a number of games to give them a proper chance to gel.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
@ivoralljack … Cullen was given a run of games earlier in the year before Whitaker returned and his numbers were as good as if not better that Piroe’s. Why Cullen / Whitaker became mutually exclusive I’ll never understand. Cullen versus Whitaker on numbers to date favor Cullen and it’s not even close. When given the opportunity to start Cullen has delivered
 

CroJack

Key Player
In a 4 2 3 1, Cooper, Cundle, Sori are behind Piroe
Or 3-4-2-1.

Lati - Wood - Cabango
Manning - Allen - Fulton - Sorinola
Cooper - Cundle
Piroe

Or 4-4-2

Lati - Wood - Cabango - Sorinola
Manning - Cundle - Allen - Fulton
Cooper - Piroe
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Sori is there in an attempt to create real width. I’d prefer Naughton to Lati at RB. Cundle in place of Whitaker or Cullen, questionable.
 
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