Recently flicking through the new FourFourTwo Season Preview magazine, I noticed they predict Swansea will finish in 20th. That's right, propping up the table. A 'Wolves' if you will. On the first read I was a little surprised, considering how well Swansea did last season.
However, the relegation predictions don't end with FourFourTwo. The American sports site, Bleacher Report feature Swansea in their 'Five favourites to be relegated this season' article, while The Independent suggest the Swans may 'struggle to keep up' in their preview.
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They key reasons behind the relegation predictions become obvious when you read on. Issues like the fact that the Premier League is all new to Michael Laudrup, a manager who hadn't been successful with all his previous teams. Also if Laudrup plans to stick to the same attractive, passing football (which he does), he won't have the element of surprise that Brendan Rodgers had last season - the rest of the league may have the Swans all figured out. This is worrying with no definite 'plan B'.
The other issues addressed in these articles focus on the players. If Sinclair leaves the club (which seems 50/50 at the moment), the Swans will have lost three of their five top scorers last season in this transfer window: Sinclair (8), Sigurdsson (7), Allen (4). This means Swansea may well be lacking the fire-power FourFourTwo warn about.
Personally I don't feel the Swans have that much to worry about. Not as much as the media make out anyway. However, points will be needed from the very start; there won't be as much room for trial and error this season.
Away form must be sorted out too, and points have to be ripped away from the new arrivals in the league as well as potential relegation rivals. This season, it should be these vital games that draw the crowds, not the Man Uniteds, Chelseas and Liverpools of the league (okay, maybe not the Liverpool one - that is a must win game!).
Swansea supporters, myself included, are more optimistic than the media, but with understandable caution. Last season we predicted a realistic finish of 16th or so in the untested waters of the Premier League, but thankfully our caution wasn't needed with the superb 11th finish. This season, we all seem to be predicting around the same (15th seems to be the magic number), with as much caution I guess.
Though praise from national media last season was nice, I'm sure we'll all admit that being the underdog is an equally enjoyable way to approach some games, so this assumption that Swansea will do poorly shouldn't get us down. We all enjoyed saying 'told you so' last season, and it'll be nice to do it again the second time around (especially to Brendan Rodgers).
if the last few games give any indication we wont have trouble with firepower its more likely that the change in style will make it more edge of the seat stuff.They dont seem very comfortable on the ball at the moment.There are more reasons for villa fans southampton fans and reading fans to be planning a trip to cardiff next year !
ReplyDeleteWe lose £60 million if we drop, we have a few quid in the bank (or will have when LFC pay up). I think the real telling time will be the next transfer window. All dice are in the air at the moment, Laudrup is finding his feet, the players are coming to terms with losing Brendon, Joe and maybe Scott too.
ReplyDeleteI just hope we scrape through this season, I fully expect to see the Swans near the bottom end of the table and hope they do exactly that.
If we finish 11th again, we will just get poached on again, because we simply do not have the wage bill and location to attract/support/keep big name players.
14th for me would be great. I feel confident Laudrup & co. can deliver that.
I agree to an extent, but while it would be good not to have players poached, wouldn't it be even better for them to be poached for the right amount (eg. Joe Allen for £15m)?
DeleteThen again it's nice to have a consistent team with not too many changes in the post season.
14th would be a great finish all things considered!
I really like that football mag, so I won't stop buying it. However, it's worth bookmarking and looking at again (and maybe responding) the next time we go all relaxed to Old Trafford on the last away game of the season.
ReplyDeleteA.S. Ken
Yeah it's a good magazine (I have a subscription myself), but think (and hope) they've got this prediction wrong!
Deleteheard it all at the start of last season, getting boring now, Swans likely end of season position somewhere around 10 / 12.
ReplyDeleteLaudrup has a better chance of keeping Swansea up than B.R would have this season. That's right... I said it!
ReplyDeleteNo disrespect to B.R, he did an amazing job and I wish him all the best. However despite having a lot of possession last season there was a distinct lack of urgency to get the ball forward (the lowest percentage of passes forward with the majority of our possession in our own half and lowest amounts of shots at goal).
Possession doesn't mean much if it's not converted into goals, this is where I believe the dreaded "second season syndrome" would have been B.Rs downfall.
Laudrup has recognised this and has made some sensible signings, most notably Michu, together with Graham who looks extremely potent!
I think this new look forward moving Swansea will again shock some teams, with that in mind a 14th place finsih would not be too far fetched.
Lolling at this right now!!
ReplyDelete