Swans v Stoke.

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Tough game tonight, we really need to be up for this one, a lot can happen in the to four tonight, Norwich/Brentford clash. I think Watford to beat Wycombe. We need this one to stay in touch and it's imperative we take points out of our games in hand.
The early KO time for the Norwich game means we have time to watch theirs and our own.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
For us ... it's going to come down to a solid midfield. Grimes & Fulton ... then Hourihane or Smith. With the latter Fulton plays further down the field. Is Hourihane to light weight to play against Stoke, can he play regularly in our schedule. On his day, Hourihane is invaluable, but he needs to be on his day.

The other challenge we have is with Lowe. Decidedly off his boil from mid-season, something needs to happen. He needs to be rested or kick it back into gear. I don't think we can carry a non-threatening forward much longer, especially when his contributions in other parts of the game are minimal. Nobody ever talks about the clearance Lowe made from a corner; we don't have to with Ayew, it's expected, and it happens. Ayew may not score but he's the "extra man" in a lot of situations.
 

CroJack

Key Player
The other challenge we have is with Lowe. Decidedly off his boil from mid-season, something needs to happen. He needs to be rested or kick it back into gear. I don't think we can carry a non-threatening forward much longer, especially when his contributions in other parts of the game are minimal.
Lowe had a good game against Bristol.

1. He showed an excellent piece of skill in the Bristol box prior to his well-taken powerful shot on target, which was saved by the Bristol goalie.

2. He provided an excellent one-touch pass and a good chance for Dhanda.

3. His link-up play with Roberts was excellent on the right flank.

4. He put in a couple of excellent crosses into the Bristol box, but unfortunatelly none of our players were there.

On another day Lowe would have scored and had one assist.

If 1., 2., 3. & 4. is "a non-threatening forward whose contributions in other parts of the game are minimal" then I really don't know what Lowe is supposed to do.

It's not a coincidence that both Lowe and Ayew have stopped scoring since Hourihane signed for us. It's worth mentioning that we neither have played well nor created many chances against Forest, Huddersfield and Coventry. If we continue to play like we did against Bristol I'm pretty sure both Lowe and Ayew will score goals.
 

CroJack

Key Player
@CroJack ... points well taken.

Interesting! What do you put that down to?
A couple of things.

First of all, we have changed formation. We used to play a more conservative 3-5-2 and 3-4-1-2. The first one with a flat 3 in the midfield Grimes-Fulton-Smith, and the second one with double pivot in the defensive midfield Grimes-Fulton or Grimes-Smith with Dhanda as attacking midfielder. When Hourihane signed for us we suddenly switched to a more attacking-minded 3-1-4-2 with our wing-backs and two atacking midfielders Hourihane and Dhanda pushing up. I have many screenshot from our games that prove a switch in our formation. Our coaching staff obviously concluded that with Hourihane's arrival we were able to play a more attacking football.

The trouble with Forest, Huddersfield and Coventry games was partly in a big gap between our back three and the front six. So instead of passing from the back, our back three were constantly trying to bypass that gap by hoffing it. Long balls after long balls and a loss of possession as the result.
Another problem was a lack of defensive discipline from Hourihane.
He was, according to Whoscored, our worst rated player in these games.
The final problem was that the big gap we had between our back three and front six caused us a lot of trouble off the ball - Huddersfield punished us with their counter-attacks, Forest and Coventry were not able to exploit that weakness.

Finally, against Bristol, our back three line was high, so we were able to pass the ball from the back, and Hourihane showed much improved defensive discipline. Suddenly, everything clicked, and we played great passing and attacking football. We lost the game due to three defensive errors: one sloppy pass from Hourihane with a failed clearance from Guehi, and two Woodman's errors. We didn't collapse as a team, it's Woodman who collapsed.

One more thing. If I was Cooper I would play Guehi, Cabango, and Latibeaudiere as our three centre-backs. They were simply excellent against Bristol.
 
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Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Swansea City: Freddie Woodman; Kyle Naughton, Ben Cabango, Marc Guehi; Connor Roberts, Korey Smith, Jay Fulton, Matt Grimes (captain), Ryan Manning; Andre Ayew, Jamal Lowe.

Substitutes: Ben Hamer, Conor Hourihane, Morgan Whittaker, Paul Arriola, Yan Dhanda, Joel Latibeaudiere, Jake Bidwell, Ollie Cooper, Kieron Freeman.
 

KVetch

Key Player
Glad to see Smith starting tonight. Looks like how we started the season. A win would be a good start. Norwich going to get all 3 points good result.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
So, it's back to 3-5-2. We are not going to create many chances.
We need to contain Allen in midfield ... the one class player Stoke have.

I expect Fulton to be driving into the box and plenty of crosses to be coming over. Fulton is probably the only true box-to-box midfield player we have, and it's a tad of a stretch to call him that although my use than his ability.
 

CroJack

Key Player
Ok??? This is brave from Cooper.

We are playing 3-1-4-2. Fulton and Smith instead of Hourihane and Dhanda are pushing high up the pitch.
 
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