Reunions aren't what they should be . Boxing day in Southampton.

[jackodiamonds]

Did anyone notice how often the Southampton players dribbled against Swansea? Officially 11 times (vs Swansea's 5), but I can't remember Swansea ever dribbling under Martin, only passing and passing and passing.

This is no doubt because Swansea do not possess good dribblers, which I feel is one fallout of the possession era of football. The game became so obsessed with passing that the art of dribbling was forgotten about. Anyway, here's some more interesting stats I found when digging around for my last post:

Swansea are dead last in percentage of successful take-ons (i.e. trying to dribble past an opponent) with 39.9%, and 20th in attempted take-ons. They are also 19th for dribbling into the opposing penalty area. So in other words Swansea hardly ever dribble and when they do they are bad at it. Considering dribbling is almost essential to creating good crossing opportunities and generally wreaking havoc in the attacking third, it is no wonder Swansea's attack is so anaemic.

Bolasie feels so fresh in Swansea mostly because he can actually dribble, and apparently there's a better chance of seeing the tooth-fairy riding a unicorn than seeing someone in a Swans shirt beat a man with the ball at his feet.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Lowe and Key try to dribble and take a defender on. Congreve can do it to some extent. Tymon is more of a push it and sprint type; not really dribbling. Grimes seems to be able to dribble but is too deep to turn it into a threat. I have no idea what Yates can do other than next to nothing. Abdulai showed flashes of it if I remember. Pato tries to dribble but usually ends up turning up his own asshole.

Long gone are the days of Michu, Pablo, Montero, et al.

 

[ivoralljack]

I've made this point about Swansea players being unable to dribble past a man thus taking him out of the game many times in the past. @CroJack said that Pato had a degree of ability with which I agree.

Regarding the team's performance against Soton, WOL ranked Cabango, Fulton and Yates as a 3 and the rest of them got a 4 apart from Pato who was 'star man' with a heady 5. Quite obviously none of those arseholes who played in this game could be bothered to show up. A proper manager would beast this lot in training and greatly extend the time they spend doing it. The message is clear - put in the effort during the game but, if you don't, I'll see to it that you do in training. Skiving, shirking and slacking is not acceptable at this club and you'll pay the price if you do!!

Clearly the players don't respect Sheehan enough to even put in a shift for him. We need a manager who won't tolerate that and we need the suits to back him.

 

[jackodiamonds]

I agree that Pato and Key can dribble a bit, and Lowe tries, and I imagine some of these players could surprise us if they were trusted to attempt dribbles more often, but we just don't see enough of it.

I think of how explosive Edozie was for Southampton or Summerville for Leeds, and I don't see anyone in Swansea capable of the same, although I still believe lack of confidence is the culprit.

Speaking of Leeds, in that game they had 11 dribbles to Swansea's 2, with Sommerville and Georginio Rutter making 5 each, and both stood out as nuisance players. It's a weapon Swansea need to start using. Hope the new manager encourages a little razzmatazz, because they're literally missing a trick out there.