Swans v Preston | Vital Football

Swans v Preston

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
With Swans fans still in shock at the capitulation of our team with three straight defeats, most recent being a pathetic display against no hopers Birmingham, one has to wonder if the head-coach has lost the dressing room.
With no idea how to break down a Birmingham side fighting for their lives, who pressed us high up the pitch and negated our wing-backs, we resorted to high balls kicked up field in the hope of one of our players getting on the end of it.
Why didn’t the head-coach and his assistants change the tactics, change the formation, make some substitutions, not just stand there like statues with hands in pockets looking gormless and lost as what to do.
With the auto-spot out of reach now, we move on to the next match and hope we can at least remain in a play-off place.
We know these players can do it, we’ve already beaten the top two this season.
Preston at home should in theory be a banker home win, they are down the bottom of the form charts and last won away at Blackburn 1-2 on 12 Feb. The problem for us is that they’ve just sacked their manager Alex Neil and his assistant Frankie McAvoy has taken over as interim head-coach. His first match in charge Preston drew 1-1 at home to leaders Norwich. He’s had an immediate effect, so here we go facing yet another team with new manager bounce for the fourth consecutive match.

It remains to be seen if there’s any pride left in this team, we’ll soon find out.
 
Form Guide last 6 matches:
14 Swans WDWLLL F4 A7 Pts 7
24 Preston LDLLLD F3 A8 Pts 2


Last 6 home:
8 Swans WWWLWL F7 A5 Pts 12


Last 6 away:
23 Preston LWLLLL F3 A11 Pts 3
 
Not wishing to single out players after the Birmingham display as they were all poor, but according to one stats website Connor Roberts completed just 15 of his 23 passes during the game, with an unimpressive 58% pass accuracy and lost possession 23 times. Over the season he has averaged 74.1% passing accuracy. Jake Bidwell was even worse, losing possession 26 times.
Our wing backs are a key part of our game and these stats show how stopping them play stops any attacking threat.
Teams have found us out and with the head-coach unwilling to change tactics and personnel during a game our present slump was inevitable.
 
one has to wonder if the head-coach has lost the dressing room.
With no idea how to break down a Birmingham side fighting for their lives, who pressed us high up the pitch and negated our wing-backs, we resorted to high balls kicked up field in the hope of one of our players getting on the end of it.
Why didn’t the head-coach and his assistants change the tactics, change the formation, make some substitutions, not just stand there like statues with hands in pockets looking gormless and lost as what to do.

Yes, exactly keith, why didn't he? Is it because he's utterly clueless and doesn't have a clue what he's doing? He didn't gamble again and put Whittaker on, a player who can actually try and create something from nothing. It's hopeless.
 
The teams:

Swansea City: Freddie Woodman; Connor Roberts, Ben Cabango, Marc Guehi, Ryan Manning; Jay Fulton, Matt Grimes (captain), Conor Hourihane; Jamal Lowe, Andre Ayew, Morgan Whittaker.
Substitutes: Ben Hamer, Ryan Bennett, Korey Smith, Wayne Routledge, Yan Dhanda, Joel Latibeaudiere, Jake Bidwell, Kyle Naughton, Ollie Cooper.


Preston: Daniel Iversen, Sepp van der Berg, Liam Lindsay, Jordan Storey, Andrew Hughes, Ben Whiteman, Ryan Ledson (captain), Emil Riis, Ched Evans, Tom Barkhuizen, Brad Potts.
Substitutes: Mathew Hudson, Tom Bayliss, Louis Moult, Paul Gallagher, Jayson Molumby, Paul Huntington, Scott Sinclair, Lewis Coulton, Billy Bodin.
 
HT: 0-0
Another crap performance, all Preston so far, we can’t hold on to the ball, we can’t string two passes together.
Preston pressing high and we have no idea how to counteract it, as usual.
He’s trying a 4-3-3 formation with Whittaker/Lowe/Ayew up front but it’s not working.
It’s only a matter of time before Preston score unless something changes.
Swans two shots, zero on target.
 
FT: 0-1
91’ Grimes own goal
Another last minute goal conceded as we try our best to throw a season’s hard work away.
The relegation form continues as this bunch of weaklings who call themselves players tried to string two passes together today and failed.
Four straight defeats.
Zero shots on target in 95 minutes.
I can’t see us winning another match, the players are absolutely hopeless and devoid of confidence and the manager has lost the dressing room.
It took us 72’ to get our first and only corner.
Preston had 6 corners.
Preston had lost their last four away matches.
Preston had scored only 3 goals in their last 6 away games.
 
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Shocking again Keith. I can't see how we can suddenly get out of this? We've stopped winning pens, scoring free-kicks and wonder goals and now we have nothing left. Is it time to consider Cooper's position in the Summer? I'd say so but I highly doubt the club are thinking that.
 
It is possible to fight your way out of a bad run, but this lot seem to have no fight left in them. There is no leader on the pitch to cajole and spur the players along, Grimes is captain in name only. Off the pitch the head-coach and his tactics are not respected by the players anymore and no wonder as his tactics and game management are poor..
This downward spiral will not stop until Cooper is removed unfortunately.
I hope he proves me wrong and turns it around, it’s not enjoyable knocking someone when they’re down.
 
Steve Cooper:
“You could say we were a little bit unfortunate with the ricochets and how it has gone in but that’s three long throws in three games where we’ve conceded and lost games. That’s an issue. We know that we’re not looking as much of a threat as we should do. We don’t look like scoring a goal. They are the two things, without having too much time to reflect, that are playing on my mind at the moment.”

Frank McAvoy:
“We thought our long throws could cause Swansea some issues. The analysts had fed that back to us. In the game against Birmingham they conceded the penalty kick from a long throw and we just thought with our size and presence at times we could get first contact and look for the second ball. We actually tried it against Norwich where we felt we could be a threat from throw-ins and today was a good opportunity for us to do it again”.


We have a week on the training pitch to iron out these problems before we face Millwall.
A goalkeeper should be dominant in his area with these long throws, ours is not, first thing to work on.

Secondly the high press which nullifies our wing-backs, we need to find a way to counteract this as every team we play now utilises it.
 
.........and the biggest worry of all - no goals for in the last four games, and against Preston, on home soil, not even a shot on target.
The owners decision not to release funds to bring in a recognised striker in January, even a loanee, has now well and truly come back to bite us on the backside.
 
It's been coming though. Only so long could we rely on being clinical , winning pens, scoring free kicks. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that we've now failed to score in 4 and lost them all. Cooper doesn't seem to have the tactical nous to fix it. He needs quality players rather than just relying on his coaching ability to work things out.