In less than a week Swansea City will be back up and running, kicking off their fourth Premier League campaign with an away trip to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United (Saturday, 12.45pm).
We've seen / heard / read about the Swans pre-season friendlies (make sure to read my full round-up) - some of them were pretty convincing wins, but other games made for much less comfortable watching.
Unfortunately when Swansea played Villarreal on Saturday at the Liberty they looked to pick up where they left off last season - a little clueless and disorganised. What is worrying is that the players on the pitch were essentially Garry Monk's first team (excluding the injured Leon Britton and Wayne Routledge).
However, despite looking very uninspiring, the 3-0 loss perhaps proved to Monk that whatever he was trying out didn't work. Set up the same way against Man United and it's pretty much the first loss of the season guaranteed.
What went wrong in that game? Well the formation seemed non-existent. Were they playing a 4-4-2? Or a 3-5-2? Or a 4-5-1? Whatever they were trying it wasn't working and they looked very unbalanced. Naturally without Britton soaking up the pressure in the middle and another dedicated winger out wide there was always going to be some unbalance.
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| Hopefully a key player again this season |
So how will Swansea fare this season? It's really hard to predict! To many pundits, the Swans are relegation fodder, but I still can't see it. If they keep hold of Wilfried Bony and he links up well with the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jefferson Montero, Jonjo Shelvey and Bafetimbi Gomis, the attack could be one of the best outside the top four.
With midfield possibly the strongest it has ever been, the main area of worry seems to be in defence - an area that has not been much of an issue in recent years. With the departure of Ben Davies and Chico Flores, this crucial part of the team is looking a little threadbare.
Angel Rangel - though still one of my favourite players - is not as sharp as he once was, while Kyle Bartley looks a little suspect at times. However the club are making a move for Napoli's Argentinian centre-back Federico Fernandez, while Nice's left/centre-back Timothee Kolodziejczak (looking forward to Kevin Johns saying that over the Liberty loudspeakers!) has also been linked with the club.
Whatever happens, fans and the board will be more sympathetic of Monk than they would another manager. But he's not invincible and if we start to see poor results there will certainly be unrest among those who wanted Monk as permanent manager and those who thought it was too soon.
The fixtures are pretty balanced throughout the season, with two highly winnable games to begin (after United of course) - Burnley and West Brom at the Liberty Stadium. I guess it would be worth reassessing after those games. Pick up six points by the end of the month and everything is fine. Anything less and questions will be asked.
But let's end this on a positive - Swansea are an established top flight side entering their fourth year in probably the greatest league in the world. With solid goalscorers, electric pace, longstanding stalwarts and a midfield with plenty of depth there's no reason we should be worried.
(Unless Bony leaves...)
Looked like 442 which follows from playing Bony and Gomis. Surely better to play either/or with Siggy - wasted on wing - as a 10 and enabling our normal formation? Hope this was a tryout of plan B with eg Utd in mind but not a success. Right side of defence needs bolstering with Chico gone although I'm not too sad at his departure.
ReplyDeleteYeah, whatever Monk was trying seemed to fail! It's best it happened in a friendly and changes can be made for the United game. As you say, Sigurdsson is wasted on the wing. Not sure where Dyer was yesterday (injured?). And yes, not too sad over Chico's departure - too erratic.
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