Planet Swans ArchivesI suspect that if they did half time press conferences at half time in the Premier League then the words of Michael Laudrup would not be as complimentary at half time as they were at the end of the game after his side demolished Sunderland 4-0.
A low key and poor first half performance saw the scoreline 0-0 at the break with the home side struggling to make any impact at all on the visitors goal and Kieran Westwood pretty much a passenger as – in fairness – was Michel Vorm at the other end of the pitch.
Laudrup said after the game; รขโฌลIn the first half, there wasnรขโฌโขt enough movement and we didnรขโฌโขt play quick enough. We didnรขโฌโขt move the ball as fast as we could.
รขโฌลAs a team, we did not perform that well in the first-half, but I knew that the players really wanted to win this game.”
And those comments were a reasonable and fair summing up of the performance in that first forty five minutes with the Swans guilty of giving the ball away cheaply and struggling to take any real control of the game. Despite having the lions share of possession it was a wasteful performance and a pretty dull game to watch before the interval.
But no press conference but clearly some choice words I suspect were thrown in the dressing room at half time and forty five minutes and four goals later it was a much happier Laudrup who summed the second half up as follows
รขโฌลThen I think it was completely different second half รขโฌโ there was much more movement, which made it hard for Sunderland to mark our players, and defensively on set pieces we improved a lot.
รขโฌลIt is a big week for us, and weรขโฌโขve started well.”
The Swans now head back into European action on Thursday night at the Liberty before welcoming West Ham here for a league game a week on Sunday.
