Swansea v Southampton

K

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
Swansea v Southampton Sat 18 April 15:00

I know. It’s completely the wrong time to play them but next Saturday we host Southampton, who after a shaky start earlier in the season are on the crest of a wave form wise, beating everybody in sight, 5 straight wins and 17 games undefeated after the 2-1 win over Derby last Saturday.

The Saints haven’t lost an away game since 4 Jan, which was a 4-0 defeat at Middlesbrough. Since then they’ve won five and drawn two on the road.

Their last away game they gave Wrexham a 1-5 whipping and leapfrogged them in the table.

To add to the negativity they’ve got three ex-Swans, Wood, Manning and Downes, who will all be hoping to score against us, as are most ex-players wonts to do.

Rewind to 18 Oct in the reverse fixture and we drew 0-0 under Sheehan in a one sided match where ‘struggling’ Saints had 21 shots on goal, 8 on target, hitting the post twice. They were 16th in the table at the time and had drawn 5 of their previous 7 games, with two wins from ten.

Our team that day:

Vigouroux, Tymon, Burgess, Cabango, Key, Stamenic, Inoussa, Galbraith, Franco, Ronald, Vipotnik

On 2 November Southampton sacked Will Still after only five months in charge, with 4 wins in 16 games.

German Tonda Eckert took over first team duties on an interim basis, promoted from his role as Saints U-21’s manager, before his position was made permanent on 5 December. In February and March he won consecutive Championship Manager of the Month awards totalling 23 points from 27 in 9 games. Two further wins so far in April have shot them up into the play-offs and 5th in the table.

Looking on the positive side we are a strong team at home and come into this game off the back of draws against Sheff Utd and Middlesbrough and a win against Leicester. Bring it on!
 
Southampton are riding on the crest of a wave as they surge up the table, winning 3-0 at home to Blackburn tonight.

They are now up to fourth spot, just three points behind second place Ipswich who have a game in hand.

Ipswich surprisingly lost 2-0 at Portsmouth in the other Championship game tonight, which further enhanced the Saints push for an automatic promotion spot.

Southampton’s last six games:

W6 D0 L0 F15 A3
 
It ended in disappointment, as it usually does against the better teams.
Once again we had a ref that changed the game in the opposition’s favour with his incompetence.
The Nathan Wood dive into Franco not even booked, nothing given, the clear penalty that wasn’t given for Wood bringing down Eom which would have put us 2-0 up, and the Flynn Downes elbow in Cullen’s face then an aggressive assault on Widell that should have been a red card. Only a yellow given and Downes was subbed at half-time for Charles who then went on to score the equaliser.
Numerous other Saints fouls waved play on by bizarre refereeing
HT: 1-0 Stamenic, Vipotnik assist
5 shots each, 2 on target each
Swans 2 fouls, 2 yellow cards
Saints 4 fouls 2 yellow cards
Corners 2/6
Second half and we conceded the equaliser by sub Charles and the winner by sub Archer right at the end, whereas our subs weakened the team and contributed nothing, bar Yalcouye. Nunes was hopeless and kept on giving the ball away, as did Burgess. It looked like Matos was going for the draw and we sat deeper and deeper and couldn’t stop the endless crosses into the box, it was inevitable the Saints would score.
 
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Quite a good performance by us I thought. We looked better on the ball and created some good chances. Decent defensively from us too other than the goals, limited them to only 1 XG. Seen the criticisms of Matos but I’ve heard him in post match press conferences about needing to have more spells with the ball. Nobody likes ceding possession and sitting back but I think we’re going to develop game control next season. I’d be surprised if this is the full extent of what we do under Matos.

Great performances from Widell and Stamenic today, both were instrumental in everything good we did.
 
We played really well first half and took the game to them - we held them back and put pressure on - playing in their half but what constantly frustrates me is how easily we let go of that hold we have on games. We just go out 2nd half and let teams come at us and we can never recover. Subs never help either

I'm not convinced either that it'll change much next season
 
VitalSwansea said:
We played really well first half and took the game to them - we held them back and put pressure on - playing in their half but what constantly frustrates me is how easily we let go of that hold we have on games. We just go out 2nd half and let teams come at us and we can never recover. Subs never help either

I'm not convinced either that it'll change much next season
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I put it down to a combination of natural game momentum, substitutions changing the dynamic and a lack of fitness to press for 90 minutes. I feel like it could change if we shift emphasis on controlling the game through possession and if we have a full preseason to get us conditioned properly for the press. Idk, I might just be wanting Matos to be the answer long term. I definitely rate him as a manager it’s just whether it’ll work long term that is still up in the air.
 
sit_down_jack said:
I put it down to a combination of natural game momentum, substitutions changing the dynamic and a lack of fitness to press for 90 minutes. I feel like it could change if we shift emphasis on controlling the game through possession and if we have a full preseason to get us conditioned properly for the press. Idk, I might just be wanting Matos to be the answer long term. I definitely rate him as a manager it’s just whether it’ll work long term that is still up in the air.
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The issues around our second half performances stem back to last season under Luke as well as at times under Russ, there were countless games where we sat in and relinquished control of the game. So is it a mindset issue, a personnel problem or a coaching negative? I’m willing to give Matos the benefit of the doubt. His current team is built on the recruitment strategy start of the season by Sheehan and co which was to pivot more towards a team who can physically compete off the ball. Does he have a centre half duo that can relieve pressure by carrying it out and building from the back? Does he have a midfield that can control a game and set the tempo when we’re under the cosh? Does he have G/A out wide? I’d say no to all of those. My head is leaning more towards the fact that he’s working with the strengths of the players he has on offer. I had a good conversation after the game today with a fan who was saying he would have gone all out for Hellberg and it would have been more of the ‘Swansea way’. And my response was - who in that team is the equivalent to Malanda to build up? Who is the equivalent to Morris to set the tempo? Who is the equivalent to Hackney for creativity? Who is the equivalent to Whittaker for goals out wide? You could say Galbraith for tempo albeit he’s being playing RB but the rest of the points you’d say no-one in that team. For me, let Matos recruit his own in the summer and judge him next season. If it’s the same trends, fair enough but you have to give him his own tools to work with.
 
trueswan16 said:
The issues around our second half performances stem back to last season under Luke as well as at times under Russ, there were countless games where we sat in and relinquished control of the game. So is it a mindset issue, a personnel problem or a coaching negative? I’m willing to give Matos the benefit of the doubt. His current team is built on the recruitment strategy start of the season by Sheehan and co which was to pivot more towards a team who can physically compete off the ball. Does he have a centre half duo that can relieve pressure by carrying it out and building from the back? Does he have a midfield that can control a game and set the tempo when we’re under the cosh? Does he have G/A out wide? I’d say no to all of those. My head is leaning more towards the fact that he’s working with the strengths of the players he has on offer. I had a good conversation after the game today with a fan who was saying he would have gone all out for Hellberg and it would have been more of the ‘Swansea way’. And my response was - who in that team is the equivalent to Malanda to build up? Who is the equivalent to Morris to set the tempo? Who is the equivalent to Hackney for creativity? Who is the equivalent to Whittaker for goals out wide? You could say Galbraith for tempo albeit he’s being playing RB but the rest of the points you’d say no-one in that team. For me, let Matos recruit his own in the summer and judge him next season. If it’s the same trends, fair enough but you have to give him his own tools to work with.
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100% agree, to be honest I remember even in the Premier League we would experience a drop off in second halves, seems a common trend with us. Hellberg would have been interesting down here because as you say, our squad isn’t really set up for his style, there’s no way we’d be able to keep the ball like Boro are at the moment. Still question marks about what we’ll look like under Matos long term but I think he deserves a chance to try and build a team. I don’t see why we can’t improve next season if we get the recruitment right. You can see at times in games we will try and play out but then someone will make a mistake and it gets booted. That can all be fixed with new personnel. I’m hoping that Matos doesn’t actually want us to surrender the ball and we’re going to see something different next season🤞🤞
 
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