A Season of Transition | Vital Football

A Season of Transition

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
The season started with high expectations, a new head-coach in charge bringing with him the prospect of an exciting brand of attacking football and a unique style of play based on high possession rates.
Fast forward to the present day with one game of the season left to play and we find ourselves at the lower end of the league table and shipping goals for fun.
We got the attacking possession football but it came with it’s flaws.
High possession rates were attained mainly by passing backwards or sideways in our own half. Trying to maintain possession by playing the ball out from the back instead of hoofing it upfield often resulted in us losing possession and conceding goals with canny opponents high pressing us.
The much criticised Steve Cooper, our previous head-coach who left with a year still to run on his contract, took us to the play-offs in successive seasons here. The fans disliked his style of play so he moved on to manage Nottingham Forest and took them from bottom of the table to the cusp of promotion this season. He well and truly rubbed our noses in it with his new club, inflicting heavy defeats on us home and away, nine goals conceded, with a brand of attacking football we thought he was incapable of producing.
It is a season of transition the sages said.
So what we are left with is a club in limbo. Can Russell Martin and his inflexible methods take us back to the Premier League? Do we stick or twist? If we stick with him then we face considerable upheaval with player turnover. Many players are deemed not good enough for the system and will be discarded leaving room for more suitable players. That’s the plan but unfortunately we have no money and will have to sell one or more of our best players to fund any incomings.
It’s certainly going to be an interesting summer.
 
A season of transition or a season of turmoil?
After two seasons of reaching the promotion play-offs, surely the clubs ambitions at the start of the season would have been to go one step further and gain promotion.
Instead we’ve regressed big time and finished in the lower half of the table in 15th place, with a style of football that has been sussed by most opposing teams and seen us concede 68 goals.
No wins in the last 6 matches and ended the season in a home defeat to a team that were in a major slump and had lost 4 out of their last 5 away matches, and as a consequence were releasing their manager Mark Warburton.
Two players on loan, from Liverpool and Man City respectively, were ignored and not played (Williams, Burns). An injured wing-back was bought in January and only played part of one game.
Players that were key to our reaching the play-off final last season (Woodman and Lowe were promoted with Bournemouth, Bidwell moved to Coventry), Hourihane has reached the play-offs with Sheff Utd, Guehi moved to PL with Palace, Roberts to PL with Burnley, and the others still here
ignored (Bennett, Fulton, Dhanda), or shipped out on loan (Whittaker, Cullen, Benda, Walsh).
A goalkeeper was bought in January for 400k who turned out to be much worse than we’ve already got.
Smith, Hamer, Fulton, Dhanda already told to find other clubs, and some loan players are expected to be culled when they return, Whittaker, Cullen, Benda, Walsh, Cooper B, Cooper O, Garrick.
Legend Alan Tate moved on after being cast aside from the coaching team, and is now assistant coach to Steve Cooper at Forest, bottom of the division when he took over to third spot and in the play-offs.
Head of Recruitment Andy Scott, who played a key role in the signing of Piroe, Lowe, Obafemi and Whittaker, left.
Assistant Head-Coach Luke Williams who came in with Russell Martin left. Sports Director Mark Allen left.
Transition or turmoil?
 
A pretty grim picture painted there, I know.
However, clean slate, it’s a new season and we as fans remain forever optimistic that we can somehow regain our PL status.
Not much to cheer about in the pre-season friendlies so far though, with the same flaws in the system showing up from last season.
One more friendly to go before the season starts in earnest, Charlton away, let’s see how we do today, where RM should pick what will be near enough his starting line-up for next week’s league match at Rotherham.
Will Joe Allen get some game time?
It’s live on SwansTV for £6.
 
Swans as poor as the Charlton TV feed, sound out of sync with play.
Down 1-0 already, water break at 26 mins.
Restart and Charlton almost scored again, Fisher saving deflected ball.
 
Swansea City: Andy Fisher; Nathan Wood, Kyle Naughton, Harry Darling; Joel Latibeaudiere, Jay Fulton, Matt Grimes (captain), Matty Sorinola; Joel Piroe, Jamie Paterson, Michael Obafemi.

Substitutes: Steven Benda, Ryan Manning, Olivier Ntcham, Liam Cullen, Ollie Cooper, Lincoln Mcfayden, Cameron Congreve.

HT: 1-0 Darling o.g.