Records are there to be smashed, not just broken

After last Saturday's draw, which equalled the club's Premier League points record, where are the Swans sights set for the rest of the season? Forza Swansea guest writer CHRIS JOBLING takes a look at the ambitions of the club now that there's nothing left to achieve.

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by Chris Jobling

With last week's 1-1 draw with Everton enough to see Swansea equal their best points return in a Premier League season, it is now a question of when, rather than if, a new benchmark is set.

It's a mark of the club’s consistency since stepping into the top flight that their annual league return over the last three seasons has been split by just seven points. They may have been edging in the wrong direction – 47, 46, 42 – but there have been mitigating circumstances.

From being a relatively unknown quantity under Brendan Rodgers, to toasting major silverware and having to juggle the demands of domestic and continental competition under Michael Laudrup – who was ushered through the exits to welcome in another new dawn.

Being free of Europa League commitments has undoubtedly aided the club this season and got them moving in the right direction again.

Club legend Garry Monk has shown himself to be a more than capable boss, with the right mix of passion and Swans philosophy allowing him to drive things forward without infringing upon the efforts of his predecessors.

Standing on 47 points is some achievement, given that there are still 18 left to play for. Monk will, unquestionably, write a new chapter in the club’s history, but sights need to be set much higher than that.

With plenty of winnable fixtures to come, at least on paper, breaking records should not be the acceptable standard – smashing them should be.

Given that four of Swansea's remaining six games will be away from the Liberty Stadium – with tricky trips to Arsenal and Crystal Palace among them – it's not going to be easy to finish with a flourish.

There are, however, holes to be picked in the credentials of just about all of their upcoming opponents: Leicester City are scrapping for their Premier League lives, but are down there for a reason, while Newcastle United are – yet again – a side in disarray. There is little advantage to be taken from playing in front of a disgruntled St James’ Park fan base at present.

Arsenal will be a stiff test on a Monday night at the Emirates, but out-of-sorts Manchester City are unlikely to be relishing a trip to South Wales, while Stoke City and Crystal Palace have little left to play for.

There is no reason why a double-figure haul should not be targeted heading down the final straight, with the Swans pushing towards the 60-point mark.

Ambitious? Yes, but that would put down a serious marker for others to follow in the future and help to set the bar at a level an ambitious outfit are now expecting, rather than hoping, to reach.

It is also looking increasingly likely that a new record points total will deliver a club-high finish among the elite, with consolidation in eighth enough to edge them above the class of 2012/13.

Why stop there though? Spurs are hardly pulling up trees at the moment and, while a seven-point deficit is a big gap to bridge at this late stage, Premier League betting suggests that they are there to be shot at after slipping into reverse.

Cup o' coffee and the Swans (Sunday Catch-up - 12th April 2015)

Another Sunday, another cup of coffee, another Swans catch-up.

Here we go!


Swansea City 1-1 Everton

Swansea were certainly the better team in the first half of their second home match in a row; probing Everton and almost coming away with a couple of things.

We saw a stunning shot from Bafetimbi Gomis which was tipped away by Tim Howard, although it caused an unfortunate hamstring pull, with the striker leaving the field soon after. Shelvey had his own excellent half-volley goal, which was disallowed due to an apparent foul in the build up by Wayne Routledge.

Shelvey's adept penalty (image: South Wales Evening Post)

Unfortunately it took just one smart move from Everton to conjure up their first real chance and - with it - their first goal, coming from Aaron Lennon in the 41st minute. Their confidence grew tenfold after that.

In the second half Swansea managed to equalise from the spot through Jonjo Shelvey with 20 minutes to go, after Seamus Coleman handled the ball while on the floor in the area. Gylfi Sigurdsson saw his well struck free kick punched away by Howard in the latter stages, but the game finished 1-1. Still no league win against Everton, but an entertaining match which probably ended fairly. (Find a full minute-by-minute round-up here).


Taylor misses two

After his 10th yellow card of the season in yesterday's match, Neil Taylor will miss the next two matches.

With Tiendalli out on loan (see below...), who will fill his boots for the away games against Leicester and Newcastle?


Europe bound?

I read an interesting article that essentially says if Arsenal are in with a shot at the title, surely Swansea are in with a shot at a Europa League place. And it's true - the Swans are currently in 8th place, seven points behind Spurs.

With six games left in the season and Spurs well off form, there's no reason Swansea couldn't catch up. Of course it'll take a great run from the Swans and, while a top six finish is almost certainly out of the question, this season - providing Liverpool finish 5th place and win the FA Cup - 7th place in the league would be enough to grab a Europa League spot.

Although this brings up the question: do we really want to be in Europe next season?


Tiendalli's unfortunate debut

It seems Middlesbrough fans now understand what Swansea fans feel when watching Dwight Tiendalli. He made his debut for Boro on Monday, when they lost 2-0 to Watford. Boro fans weren't pleased with their new acquisition, taking to Twitter to vent their frustration over his positioning mainly.

The defender was subbed after 63 minutes in that first game, and didn't feature in yesterday's 2-0 win against Rotherham (not even on the bench).

I'll leave you with some comments from a Tiendalli Twitter search...

Swansea City 3 - 0 Everton: A brief report

After Swansea finally saw off their bogey team Everton in last night's Capital One Cup match, Forza Swansea's newest blogger JUSTIN AGTAV briefly shares his opinions on the game with a focus on Jefferson Montero, Bafetimbi Gomis and Jazz Richards.

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By Justin Agtav

Swansea City bounced back from their two Premier League defeats on Tuesday to beat Everton 3-0 at a rainy Liberty Stadium. The Swans made five changes to their starting eleven after the game against Southampton (with the inclusions of Gerhard Tremmel and Tom Carroll), while Everton made seven switches.

Nathan Dyer scored the first goal in the first half, before Gylfi Sigurdsson nabbed the second in the 64th minute, followed by a late goal by second-half substitute Marvin Emnes.

Montero of the match!

But the man of the match for me was speedy Jefferson Montero, who terrorized Everton’s right back Tony Hibbert throughout the game and set up Nathan Dyer's goal. The Ecuadorian winger has looked lively in every match he has played and it may not be too long before he finally gets a Premier League start. He hasn’t so far probably because the Swans have two excellent in-form wingers, Dyer and Routledge, but if either of them suffer a dip this season we know that the former Morelia player can step into their shoes perfectly.

Another player who performed really well in the cup match was Jazz Richards. Forza Swansea writer Matthew Jacob recently wrote a great article about how the only real cover Swansea have at right back is the 23-year-old local boy. In the match against Everton, Richards might not have been spectacular but put in a solid performance and was rarely caught out of position.

One player who also put in quite a good performance was Bafetembi Gomis. The Frenchman held the ball up well at times, but it would be nice to see him get on the score sheet soon. He has been excellent so far with his strength and speed, and bringing other players into play, but he is a forward and I want to see him score at some point!

At the back Swansea were pretty comfortable all night. Federico Fernandez was relatively untroubled but did misjudge tackles a couple of times. Thankfully whenever he did he was able to regain the ball. I may be being a little harsh on Fernandez as he is just getting used to playing with Swansea and he is already showing signs that, in time, he will be an excellent addition to the club.

Overall, the Swans were comfortable throughout the match so there’s not too much to dissect, which is always a good thing! I will say that Montero played outstandingly, and that Richards was solid - Monk may be wise to start giving him a little time in Premier League games. I'd also like to see a little more from Gomis - especially some goals!

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Thanks to Justin for his opinions on the match. You can follow him on Twitter and follow Forza Swansea for updates.

Swansea 0 – 3 Everton: Another one to forget!

If you are here, you're a glutton for punishment. Seriously, it's a lovely sunny Saturday evening - why aren't you drinking away the memories of the early kick-off in one of Swansea's many beer gardens?

Right... the match. Everyone has off days. Unfortunately the Swans players had all their off days at the same time!

It's really hard to write about Swansea City when it seemed like it wasn't actually Swansea playing. The players were wearing the kit, but otherwise it could have been Tranmere Rovers knocking it around.

Let's face it - the Swans were useless for much of the game. The usual smooth pass-and-move-forward game was replaced with a bumpy pass-and-lose-it-in-bad-areas style. Every first touch looked to bounce into the distance and careless passes were intercepted with ease.

Fair enough to Everton, who deserved the win and deserved to sit at the top of the table (albeit briefly). They have some very talented players. However, despite their clear abilities this season, I can only say 'Swansea made it easy for you'.

Lovely day at the Liberty (apart from the game).

What went wrong? It certainly wasn't the strongest Swansea team on the pitch. When Alan Tate and Ben Davies start, you know things will have a degree of shakiness about them. Elsewhere, Nathan Dyer and Leon Britton were two key players - maybe the most vital so far this season - who were left on the bench. They would have set a different tone to the game had they started. Don't get me wrong, before the match I was excited to see Hernandez and Sung-Yueng make the starting line-up, but in reality they made little impact.

Defensively the Swans seemed all over the place. Tate - though we love him - messed up a few times. Davies was decent in some places, but showed his naivety in other areas, and allowed Pienaar to slip past him and create the second goal, five minutes before half time. Essentially game over.

Once again we have Michel Vorm to thank for it not being 7-0, though even his distribution was a little poor today.

Nathan Dyer really looked to change things when he came on, however his feisty attitude led to two yellows - one for mouthing-off and the other for a bad tackle on Leighton Baines. However it was not just Dyer; discipline was surprisingly bad from Swansea, with a whopping (never used that word on the blog before) five yellow cards.

I didn't see much of Ki Sung-Yueng in the first half, though he replaced Tate in the back when Leon Britton came on and made some use of himself. For me, Britton was the most effective and it showed how much Swansea missed him from the starting line up. Angel Rangel also had a decent game going forward.

The referee? Well, from a Swansea perspective he was terrible, and gave Everton one-too-many decisions. But I'm not going to blame it all on him.

Two poor performances and two deserved losses for Swansea now. There's not much more to say about this game. Looking on the bright side, Swansea are still in a fine position (ninth in the table as I write this), but we can't rely on those brilliant first few games to see us through the rest of the season!

Next week the away trip to Stoke is likely to be an equally difficult game, but then we have two potential wins against Wigan and Reading - a few points from those will be vital.

Before all that Premier League action, the Swans will play Crawley Town in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday. A chance for the team to get a good win and a little confidence after a few games to forget.

Swansea City vs Everton: Safety matches!

The notion of “safety” in the Premier League seems a little irrelevant when Swansea City comfortably hold eighth position in the table.

Even so, the mathematicians among you (which, I suspect, is not that many) will want the added feeling of security that 40 points will bring and a win in Saturday's game against Everton will push Swansea into the desired “safe” zone.

The current team is looking more and more comfortable each week. I can't see much being changed this Saturday - the old cliché reads 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. (Other clichés I enjoy include: 'stubborn as a mule', 'tip of the iceberg' and 'start from scratch' - all have probably featured heavily in this blog over the years.)

Nathan Dyer will be serving the last of his three-match ban for his red card at Wigan, leaving Wayne Routledge to once again fill in on the right wing. I guess “fill in” undermines him slightly as he's done so much more than just fill a hole. While arguably less skilful and certainly less speedy than Dyer, Routledge's delivery into the box has been superb and it's something that is definitely leading to goals.

Gylfi Sigurdsson is having an inspired few weeks and I wouldn't bet against him getting another goal or two in the game against Everton. He's certainly the player to permanently fill the Dobbie-role (now on loan to Blackpool until the end of the season) – if Swansea can raise the funds to sign him.

Ashley Williams is still not a certainty to start after missing out at Fulham due to sickness last weekend. We hope he returns, but I'm sure Monk would relish another starting appearance (and probably deserves it).

Before we get too caught up in getting the fourth win in a row, lest we forget Everton are still a “big” team. Despite now being below the Swans in the table (tenth), they're consistently a top-ten side and boast a number of impressive players and a good manager in Moyes.

Everton took all three points from Swansea in Goodison Park at Christmas time with a 1-0 win, but were unable to overtake the Swans in the table on Wednesday, when they lost 1-0 to Arsenal. In fact the Arsenal game marked the third in a row without a win, so they'll see Swansea as a route back to winning ways. I'm sure they'll be wary though – I don't think any team now feels Swansea is an easy three points, especially at the Liberty Stadium.

But who am I to analyse Everton? In a ForzaSwansea first, I've allowed another blogger to grace my blog. Here's some great analysis from Nic, writer at top Everton blog The Executioner's Bong:

Brendan Rodgers has rightly been lauded for the way Swansea have lightened up the top flight. The best thing about your style is that it shows you don’t have to play the direct, dour percentage football adopted by other sides that have come up.

Against a side who keeps the ball like you guys do there is perhaps a plan A and Plan B. ‘Plan A’ is to let you have the ball, conserve energy by only pressing when you approach 20 yards from our goal. Plan B is to stop you playing from the back. Given the small squad and the vital cup replay on Tuesday I’d doubt very much if Moyes would adopt an energy sapping tactic like Plan B and will instead adopt Plan A and look to stand off, narrow the passing angles to Swansea’s defenders and push them to play longer.

Moyes will certainly shuffle his pack for this one given the Arsenal game last night and the cup game next Tuesday. I’d expect Stracquilarsi, Anichebe and perhaps Gueye to get run outs given they all have good energy as we will probably spend a lot of time not in possession. Pienaar is cup tied for Tuesday so will probably start also. I’d imagine Cahill, Jelavic and possibly Drenthe will all be rested.

Our goal scoring record on the road is awful – less than one per game – so you probably only need the one goal to win it!

With that in mind, let's move to some bets! If you're planning to place a wager on the match, a few to cover are listed below:

Swansea are favourites at 5/4 so would be a good inclusion in any accumulator you have going this weekend. 'Sigurdsson to score first' is at 13/2 and probably worth covering as he is the man on fire at the moment.

My score prediction is 2-1 to Swansea, which is priced at 15/2. Nic says just one goal could win it for Swansea, and 1-0 to the home side is at 11/2 (all odds from PaddyPower)!

Thanks again to Nic and be sure to check out The Executioner's Bong for more analysis!