Swansea City at home match thread

[Port Said Red]

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally they bore me to tears. I get that they have "an identity" and as successive Managers have maintained that style of play with varying degrees of success, it must be what the club want. 

In theory they should be a team I enjoy, I like to see teams passing the ball and controlling the game, but honestly if I had to watch that every week I would probably start to look for excuses to avoid matches.

They had 78% of the possession yesterday and yet I would say that the vast majority of that was to no purpose whatsoever, long periods of just passing the ball between themselves in an area just either side of the halfway line. There was little progression, movement or incisiveness in their play. 

Someone was bemoaning the lack of atmosphere and I can't help feeling this type of football is part of the reason.

[Banjo Red]

Deflected goal yesterday, if we show that sort of intensity regularly we will smash someone sooner of later.

[Swede]

I have to agree with this. I remember witnessing the same type of football a few years ago when Ashley Williams was playing for them. A real yawn fest.

[fishy]

10 hours ago, Simon79 said:

Absolutely, thought Wells was very good today. His movement was good & his partnership with Conway was yet again evident. Semenyo was reactionary I throughout. COYR 

Ive been quick to be critical of Wells, but some of his first touches under pressure where sublime.  I came away from a draw feeling like it was a really positive performance.

[Swede]

A big shout out to Nige!

Despite having FOUR first choice centre backs missing yesterday he still picked a side with three forwards high pressing their defence. Absolutely spot on with the tactics.

Whilst you have to give a little bit of credit to Swansea for the way they play, the high press certainly is a way of combating it. That was where the match was decided. It was our inability to convert those chances after they (yet again) overplayed the passing out of defence.

I thought the makeshift back three were excellent yesterday. It helps that Swansea were generally a small side so I don't think these three would necessarily work against teams with more of a physical presence up front.

Pring was excellent, Tanner was good but Vyner deserves a lot of the praise the way he organised the defence and led by example.

Up top Wells was excellent, Conway took his goal really well, he is a finisher. He would've scored if he was presented the same type of opportunity that Semenyo had when their keeper made an excellent save.

I thought Sykes was a little wasteful at times and Semenyo continues to blow hot and cold. 

[pillred]

19 hours ago, italian dave said:

We had exactly that debate walking back to the car after the game.

I felt it was two points dropped. But two of the four of us felt it was a point gained. 

So I think it’s fair to say you could see it either way. Or that we all see things differently (players, tactics, teams,as well as referees @glynriley ) 

When you look at the table the way results when it was definitely a point gained and would have felt even more like that had we been the ones coming from one nil down.

[pillred]

18 hours ago, pongo88 said:

I thought it was a good performance but the Swansea goal illustrated the problems with City’s zonal marking at corners. As soon as Ntcham came on as sub for Derby  he took up the same position, just outside the box,  at every Derby corner. Every time he was left unmarked as his position didn’t fit in with City’s zonal plan. Eventually the ball landed at his feet and bang it was a goal 

Derby?? how many pints of Natch have you had :laugh:?

[Simon79]

39 minutes ago, fishy said:

Ive been quick to be critical of Wells, but some of his first touches under pressure where sublime.  I came away from a draw feeling like it was a really positive performance.

Yeah, I actually think his hold up play under pressure for a fairly slight guy is very good, his awareness beyond that is also very good. Uses his body well & has a good touch. Think he’s in his last year of contract, will be interesting to see what happens there, obviously on reduced wages though. COYR 

[Numero Uno]

1 hour ago, Port Said Red said:

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally they bore me to tears. I get that they have "an identity" and as successive Managers have maintained that style of play with varying degrees of success, it must be what the club want. 

In theory they should be a team I enjoy, I like to see teams passing the ball and controlling the game, but honestly if I had to watch that every week I would probably start to look for excuses to avoid matches.

They had 78% of the possession yesterday and yet I would say that the vast majority of that was to no purpose whatsoever, long periods of just passing the ball between themselves in an area just either side of the halfway line. There was little progression, movement or incisiveness in their play. 

Someone was bemoaning the lack of atmosphere and I can't help feeling this type of football is part of the reason.

It’s interesting that when we passed it around, albeit much less than them, we created three great chances and a number of balls flashing across the box that were screaming for someone to get in the end of them first half yesterday. They created **** all with their 23,000 passes. O’Learys only save was the last kick of the half when they pumped a set piece into the box. That was great handling by Max btw.

Swansea for all the possession play a very cautious game, hundreds of passes in areas where they can’t hurt you but also means you can’t hurt them. It looks easy on the eye but as you say you aren’t under huge pressure but you don’t see much of the ball and it detracts from the atmosphere of the game.

The one area we have made massive improvement this season is attacking where we are very positive in possession and can cause any team problems albeit we still put in Birmingham, Millwall and Reading performances where we offer sod all. Given the apparent message on points deduction the other night if we can offload the OOC players in Jan such as Massengo and add one or two to give us physicality we really ought to be ok this season.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Looking back at it, we were reasonably comfortable for a lot of it. Watched the highlights again too.

There was no great storm to weather, no prolonged, sustained of pressure on our goal. Semenyo definitely should have scored his chance early on although Benda did well. Thought Conway and Wells wrre quite good, Semenyo not so much although he did play a part in our goal.

Without the deflection do they score?

[Jerseybean]

13 hours ago, Rob k said:

Think they have been generous with Semenyo there to be given the same rating as Wells personally 

Yes I agree 

[Davefevs]

@Numero Uno638 passes v 249. Boring as eff tho, whether it’s 23,000 or 638.

[Numero Uno]

16 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

@Numero Uno638 passes v 249. Boring as eff tho, whether it’s 23,000 or 638.

It would be interesting to count how many passes the best attacking teams in the world need to play in 90 minutes. With the possible exception of Man City, and even they have morphed to a slightly more direct side (in terms of passing it forwards not smashing it forward) with Haaland up top, I would guess less than 638 passes a game in many cases.

[spudski]

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Looking back at it, we were reasonably comfortable for a lot of it. Watched the highlights again too.

There was no great storm to weather, no prolonged, sustained of pressure on our goal. Semenyo definitely should have scored his chance early on although Benda did well. Thought Conway and Wells wrre quite good, Semenyo not so much although he did play a part in our goal.

Without the deflection do they score?

Its interesting when you look at the timelines of when teams tend to score or concede goals.

Like yesterday, Swansea are vulnerable in the first half, when you press them hard with bags of energy and intent. If you take your chances ( we didn't ) you give yourself a chance of a result against them. 

However...they stick to their guns and play possession based football. They do it in a way that is slow and methodical. They expend very little energy. They wear teams out. Defending against them is physically and mentally exhausting. Eventually they use that to their advantage. 

We need to be more in control in possession. Always having to defend leads to exhaustion, physically and mentally. And more inclined to individual mistakes.

This table is interesting. Goals scored and conceded in 10 min intervals 

https://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=england2&tid=j

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, spudski said:

Its interesting when you look at the timelines of when teams tend to score or concede goals.

Like yesterday, Swansea are vulnerable in the first half, when you press them hard with bags of energy and intent. If you take your chances ( we didn't ) you give yourself a chance of a result against them. 

However...they stick to their guns and play possession based football. They do it in a way that is slow and methodical. They expend very little energy. They wear teams out. Defending against them is physically and mentally exhausting. Eventually they use that to their advantage. 

We need to be more in control in possession. Always having to defend leads to exhaustion, physically and mentally. And more inclined to individual mistakes.

This table is interesting. Goals scored and conceded in 10 min intervals 

https://www.soccerstats.com/table.asp?league=england2&tid=j

Tend to agree.  Need to try to find that balance between control and counter-attack…but importantly when to take the sting out of games, either by a little minute or two of passing for passing’s sake, or breaking up opposition rhythm in whatever way we can.

Having said that, we’ve gained one point all season (Blackpool) where we went 1-0 down…so important we seek out the first goal ourselves! Ultimately we are a middle eight squad with some good bits and some flaws in equal measure(ish)!

[Cowshed]

29 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

It would be interesting to count how many passes the best attacking teams in the world need to play in 90 minutes. With the possible exception of Man City, and even they have morphed to a slightly more direct side (in terms of passing it forwards not smashing it forward) with Haaland up top, I would guess less than 638 passes a game in many cases.

Bayern Munich, PSG as an average make more passes than 638 a game. 

Man City recently went past 900 passes in a game v Dortmund who also average more than 638 passes a game. Haaland played in that game.

[Davefevs]

23 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

Bayern Munich, PSG as an average make more passes than 638 a game. 

Man City recently went past 900 passes in a game v Dortmund who also average more than 638 passes a game. Haaland played in that game.

…and look at each players average passing position!

 

passing networks aren’t definitive but we can see (at a glance) that Man City do their passing much further up the pitch, working openings, Swansea created pretty much bugger-all in open play.  Swansea probe around the centre circle, Man City probe much higher up the pitch.

Man City have almost twice as much passing in their opposition’s third than Swansea too.

[Numero Uno]

41 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

Bayern Munich, PSG as an average make more passes than 638 a game. 

Man City recently went past 900 passes in a game v Dortmund who also average more than 638 passes a game. Haaland played in that game.

Fair enough although @Davefevsmakes a good point about where they are passing and the direction of passing. What Swansea "produced" yesterday was not good passing football imo unless your definition of good is keeping the ball, so the opposition aren't a threat whilst not being any sort of threat yourself. Swansea's major threat attacking wise yesterday came from set pieces.

I'm willing to bet that there are other very good attacking sides who offer far more than Swansea at a higher level than Swansea and who don't need to make 600-900 passes per game.

[Cowshed]

41 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

…and look at each players average passing position!

 

passing networks aren’t definitive but we can see (at a glance) that Man City do their passing much further up the pitch, working openings, Swansea created pretty much bugger-all in open play.  Swansea probe around the centre circle, Man City probe much higher up the pitch.

Man City have almost twice as much passing in their opposition’s third than Swansea too.

It was not a point about anything beyond numbers of passes. I could have progresseed it a bit. Man City play with depth and width. Man City do play a lot from the back, its up back and through with Ederson making thirty plus passes a game, and the team making exceptional numbers of passes backwards (up to 40%), backwards to go fowards and stretch the pitch in theory.

Swansea are compact in comparison. 

 

31 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Fair enough although @Davefevsmakes a good point about where they are passing and the direction of passing. What Swansea "produced" yesterday was not good passing football imo unless your definition of good is keeping the ball, so the opposition aren't a threat whilst not being any sort of threat yourself. Swansea's major threat attacking wise yesterday came from set pieces.

I'm willing to bet that there are other very good attacking sides who offer far more than Swansea at a higher level than Swansea and who don't need to make 600-900 passes per game.

Man City's game recently v Dortmund saw City have five shots from 900+ passes. 

Good there is a perception. 

Possession at the top level is regularly used to nullify the opposition. Team rest in possession and subdue. Principle one is frequently the possession football is keeping the ball, in order to play positional play. 

The same fundamental principle is there in Swanseas play, with more functional positional play.