Swansea 2-1 Watford Fc - 02/01/2021

A draw away against the team in second would surely be OK. Also surely there must be loads of question marks, which will only be answered bit by bit as the season progresses. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

We are not halfway through this season yet. It will be nothing if not a marathon. It would surprise me less if there were plenty of twists and turns still to happen.

 

Same with giant slalom I understand.

 

I think La Cluzaski is the expert on that.

 

I used to run at county level, and I used to do much better when running my home races than when I had to travel across the country.

There’s the routine, the knowledge of the intricacies of the ground, the fact that muscles get tighter and people tire when travelling, less sleep etc.

As seen by the negligible recent change in away win rates, fans are probably quite a small part of the equation.

 

According to this study across all of Europe's top five leagues, home advantage has been severely affected by COVID and the corresponding lack of fans: https://www.lcp.uk.com/media-centre...-advantage-in-football-leagues-across-europe/

Here's the headline:



I don't doubt the experience is still not the same when playing away as it is playing at home, but I did say 'we shouldn't necessarily be expecting the away performances to be any different to the home ones (or at least nowhere near as much as our prior schizophrenic behaviour), not quite that there is literally no difference, and I talked about performances, not necessarily ultimate success/results - there was a very clear difference in performance under Ivic between home and away, and it's not possible to claim that it was solely down to the difference in circumstance - it was very clearly down to the coaching and tactical instruction at least as much (and very probably more).

I might also venture that, whilst it's impressive that you ran at a county level as a child/young person(?), your experience of travelling to compete might well have been ever so slightly less managed and luxurious than that of our spoiled little prima donnas/elite thoroughbreds-of-the-pitch.

 

VAR decimating home advantage might be its only plus point...

 

Sadly you can't actually give it too much credit, however, apparently:

 

Without fans as (supposedly) professional athletes it really should not make more than a negligible difference. If our players are supposedly better than the opposition, then things like a different changing room, different stands to look at or a slightly different pitch shouldn’t make enough of a difference that it visibly reduces a players ability. They’ve done it every other week or every week for their entire career, it shouldn’t be something that affects a professional athlete to the extent it has us this season. The travel aspect should be mitigated by proper preparation.

 

As I predicted pre-season, VAR will stitch up Burnley this season. Now we're no longer in the Premier League, operation "Get rid of the minnows" is in full swing and pointing their desires at them.

 

I agree especially in normal circumstances.
I do wonder if travel can be a negative factor during covid for longer journeys especially midweek.? At the Burnley away game during restart, midweek, I did think that's a horrible journey and they probably made us change in a cold shack out the back..

In hindsight I think the most encouraging change in the Norwich game was the way we switched from attack to defence quickly and as a team, we got men back in position really well compared to the last (ahem) two years or more....

 

D'oh.

 

Looking forward to this. Should be an entertaining game as we’ve had a week off and should be reasonably fresh. Be interesting to see how xisco goes at this, had a lot longer to prepare than the Norwich game which for me was very good how he got something across in such a short time.

Can see masina starting so no square pegs. Who sits in capoues position hopefully performs. And if gray gets the nod with Troy again well let’s hope he try’s to put himself in the shop window.


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Need a win to make up the gap on Norwich , hopefully we will go for it.

Would like to see Hughes back and Perica up front with Deeney, however wouldn't surprise me if the league was suspended until February or beyond.

Swansea 0 Watford 3

 

If we play like we want the win we'll get it. On paper at least we have the better squad and I'm definitely more optimistic after the Norwich game.

I'm going for a 1-2

 

Don’t mean to go all Ivic but the main priority is don’t lose to the teams around us. We’ve got a decent record on that front so far, apart from Reading. All the games outside the top 6 are must win and we can approach them as such.

 

As QPR proved there's no such thing as a straight forward game in the Championship.

 

Indeed. Following that result, we can set our sights a little lower than matching their draw. Maybe a defeat by the odd goal.

 

That's the spirit.

 

By kick off we'll be in Tier 7 and Swansea in Tier 8.

Only players whose surnames begin with a P and who have never petted an ostrich will be allowed into Wales for the match.

 

Given that we're talking about Wales here, define "petted".

 

Um, I'll go with 'seen in the distance' in that case

 

Bennett done his hamstring, should be out for this game which is good.

I hope we go 4-4-2 again against them - Swansea generally set up pretty conservatively with their 3 CBs, and they'll all be pretty inexperienced, so we might as well stick 2 strikers up against them.

 

Three-at-the-back was literally developed to counter two strikers upfront though, was it not? It would be a lot better if we could field a single striker, leaving their three confused about which should deal with them and giving attacking players in midfield/on the wing more space and freedom as a result. Obviously, we don't have the players or squad to do that, though, so we'll have to square peg it as ever, presumably.

 

I got a not so good feeling that Xisco is going to start with 4-2-3-1 Deeney up front on his own as its an away game.

 

I thought by now everyone had agreed that there was no home advantage at the moment?

 

1 striker vs 3 CBs is usually a piece of pi55 for the 3 CBs to deal with. It does not generally cause more confusion or create more space as you hypothesise, it tends to leave the striker isolated and the wingers and midfielders trying to cross/pass the ball to no one.

Not many teams in the Champ play with 2 CFs and Swansea have the best defensive record in the league, no doubt in part because of that.

Just because 3 CBs are a bit more able to deal with 2 CFs than 2 CBs, it does not mean that 1 CF is more of a threat (they add the extra defender because they know 2 CFs is more of a threat than 1). If anything, knowing the opposition will always try and add more defenders to try and compensate for however many forwards you play, should encourage a team to play with even more forwards - they might as well as they know that it will increasingly leave their opponent with fewer attackers of their own to try and score with.

 

352 is said to have been developed around Maradona.

We should go 433 imo, 3 at the back is weak against wingers. Encourage Sarr and Sema to use the channels, and when the attack is on the other side make the far post runs. Use Cleverley in the box to box Doucoure role to get numbers closer to Deeney, Cleverley has always had a great engine. Chalobah / Hughes / Garner in the 2 holding roles.

 

Cleverley is done by 65-70 minutes every game these days.

 

Let's be honest. The Norwich game confirmed what we all already knew. We are absolutely levels above this league as long as we don't have a coach who wants Sarr to be a full back.

Swansea are a good side at this level. But we aren't at this level.

Prediction

Swansea 1-5 Watford
Ayew (90+1); Sarr (21, 43), Hughes (32), Deeney (35, pen 45+1)

Xisco plays the kids in the second half with the job already done.

 

The more I think about it, it does seem a bit odd that Capoue had to go in advance of 1st January. Why could the club do the deal after the Swansea game? It's a hugely significant match and surely we need all the quality we can muster. Billed as Capoue's final match, I'm sure he would have like to have gone out on a high note after 5 and a half years.

Now we're down to the bare bones and no have chance of getting someone registered in time for Swansea, as the window doesn't open until 2nd January.

Seems like another self inflicted wound to me.

 

He would have just kept away from the ball and made sure he didn't get injured now that we've finally agreed to let him go....

 

Crapoo hasn't put a decent shift in for yonks. That pees off players that do or that he gets ahead of in the team. Getting shot of an in form and motivated Crapoo is indeed a weakening of our side. Getting shot of the Crapoo we've had for the last 12 months of more frees up space for someone that wants to be here.