Swansea City H [PL] 17:30 Sat 16th September 2017

[Dorset]

Fuck me we put 8 past them last season! We never looked like scoring! Balance was wrong and why the fuck do you put trippier on the left! To say i am angry is an understatement

Yes we did look like scoring! Flabbyhandski made 3 really good saves, the woodwork was rattled, 2 nailed on penalties were denied! So that's 6 times at least we looked like scoring. I don't understand why Trips was put out on the left either, maybe Poch knows what he is doing? He looked comfy there so that really wasn't a problem. Nothing to be angry about in my opinion, I am not remotely arsed about that performance, it was just one of those days - it's happened before and it will happen again.

26 Shots, 8 on target, 11 corners, 75% possession. If we carry on playing like that we will do OK this season.

 

[skiathospurs]

A team missing last years staples,rose,wanyama and dembele,and I think it was a central midfielder not carrying the ball past one or two that allowed them to sit deep with 8 or 9 behind the ball.On top of that Dele was poor and our crossing was awful,we must have swung in nigh on 50 crosses inc corners and bar harrys header,fernandez nearly putting in his own net and dele`s completely misguided headed we either hit the 1st man or was far too deep.We will see in weeks to come if resting some was the right thing,we are 2 games a week for a few months if we progress in the lge cup now,thats not an excuse just probably what was in the managers thoughts?
Pretty sure end of last sept everyone said city had won the league and we def wouldnt get top 4.Have to think this will motivate us to smash the spam next weekend!!

 

[Glenjamin]

Having some time to let that sink in my thoughts...

We need to play into the space quicker. We kept doing the same thing over and over. Lloris to vert... Vert to Sanchez... Sanchez to Toby... What for?? There wasn't a Swansea player within 10 yards of our half of the field.

Our shooting was shocking. I don't get how a premier league player can't hit a rollng ball cleanly. Don't get me wrong the odd one is going to be wild but so many were going row Z.

Sissoko is stealing a living.

That game was crying out for Davies and Dembele. Players are drawn to Dembele because he is so hard to tackle. This is perfect with 11 men behind the ball, as a couple will venture in to the tackle. Davies obviously would have just given us more width first half.

We're going to have to deal with this defensive block all season long do we really need to learn how to break it down.

The players seemed to be under the illusion the win was a formality until about 60 mins when it sunk in this wasn't going our way.

The referee was shocking aswell.

I really like the look of this aurier fella. Looks like a great buy. As does Sanchez.

 

[Dustin]

Agreed but we had more than enough quality on the pitch to beat that lot. Bottom line is that they executed their game plan pretty well and we weren't good enough on the day. Couple of big decisions could and should've gone our way but we were a little off it in the final third.

I disagree about it being enough, quality is not just individuals that score goals, it's about having the right balance and quality for the positions and tactics we deploy. Take a look at the average position map: http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/41210054 and heat map https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1190202/Live/England-Premier-League-2017-2018-Tottenham-Swansea

We played virtually the whole game in a very small portion of the pitch and as it wore on, desperately needed to find ways to make more space. It's no surprise that our goal scorers didn't do anything overly special. Other than Kane's snap off the bar, we had pretty poor quality of chances. Break them down and you'll see we had a lot of chances but from poor positions. 16 of 26 were taken outside the penalty area with only 4 of them on target. 8 Shots total went on goal, but only 4 were inside the area, 3 of which were from very tight angles. We needed to make more space for good opportunities, Davies would have helped a lot in that second half, as would have telling Son to park himself on the corner flag, and buying Sissoko a bus ticket - and frankly, we would have eveb benefited from less possession as it would have dared Swansea to step out of the bus station. A lot of teams are going to park the bus this season, and we need to have a far more versatile plan to open them up than we showed yesterday.

 

[wilson]

I think it was a central midfielder not carrying the ball past one or two that allowed them to sit deep with 8 or 9 behind the ball

We need to play into the space quicker. We kept doing the same thing over and over. Lloris to vert... Vert to Sanchez... Sanchez to Toby... What for?? There wasn't a Swansea player within 10 yards of our half of the field.

^ this was the key for me.

For long portions of the game it was just Dier sat there in the middle of the park, he had acres of space and time on the ball but lacking the attacking or ball playing ability to do anything worthwhile. Not his fault as that isn't his game and he showed it wasn't by attempting to do it nearer the end and chipping the ball out for goal kicks trying to feed Harry, etc. So his options were to ping it out wide and likely receive it straight back again, let the CBs have it or feed it to an overcrowded central area. Another CM would have made the attacking area less crowded, dragged out a player and seen the CBs/Dier with less of the ball trying to force something that isn't in their locker. It just made it very easy for Swansea to stick men behind the ball comfortable without giving away space and able to double up on our boys. At times Eriksen and Alli did occupy that space but few and far between and neither had great games. I thought Alli, in particular, had one of his worst games for us.. He's had so many great ones though that I don't care - with our squad and first XI it shouldn't matter if one of our players is slightly off his game.

What's the deal with Winks?? I know he was injured but he's been back a while now yet not getting a sniff in? Presumed he'd at least come on.. In terms of other subs, I was so happy Llorente was brought on as we were pumping it into the box time and time again, yet when we did put him on we seemed to stop putting crosses in haha! I'd also say that I don't feel we should need 3 CBs and a defensive midfielder on the pitch against Swansea at "home," but if Dembele needed the rest and Winks isn't fit enough then maybe we didn't have the squad available to do anything else?

The whole Davies/Trippier/Son situation was more than a little perplexing but it wasn't the end of the world and I thought Trippier did okay at LB, but then I think I could've looked okay there considering how Swansea set up. Davies would obviously have balanced the team a lot better mind.

Some things were unfortunate about the match. It was unfortunate the ref made a cock up with the last penalty shout on Aurier. It was unfortunate Fabianski made a couple of good saves and Harry's hit the bar. It was unfortunate that I have to watch Sissoko still wearing our shirt. It was unfortunate that Swansea didn't turn up to play a good game of football - either they set up to be shit and boring or they are simply just that shit they weren't able to play.

All in all, an average performance, disappointing result, 2 points dropped but we go again! Long ol' season and I still have faith that we will be top 4 come the end. A good performance again from Sanchez and Aurier too. Can't wait till we get in the new stadium and put all the Wembley excuses and nonsense behind us

 

[Yid]

I couldn't have done any better... chalk it up, crack on to the next game.

 

[deejbah]

Having Trippier shift to the left really hampered our play - we suddenly went from having a threat from that side and also having some threat from Trippier's side to having almost no threat at all with Sissoko and Trippier on the right and the left respectively. It made it very easy for them to just shift slightly to his side and not commit so hard to cut off a run because he was never going to run beyond. He didn't do anything wrong on that side he just did not occupy their defence in any threatening way in comparison to Son or Davies, let alone Rose, while he did make a few early crosses from that side, they had to be from even deeper than he puts the ball in from the right side and it was quite easy for Swansea to pack out the box for any such ball in any case. Having said that, we still could have won this game 2-0.