Phil SumblerThe words of Neil Critchley on Saturday evening suggested he was surprised at the way the Swans had approached the game but added that they were comfortable with the amount of possession that the Swans had in the game – possession that it was widely agreed did nothing to hurt the home side at all.
The game may have been decided within the first five minutes when Gary Medine headed home the only goal of the game but there were several chances for the home side where they should have extended their lead despite their vastly inferior possession of the ball.
“In terms of chances created, they fell to us”, Critchley told their official website. “We scored early from a set-piece, which was an area we felt we could exploit. Josh then had a big chance just before half-time, Kirky had a good chance too, so we created a good amount of opportunities. Other than Grimmy’s save in the second half, I think we were quite comfortable.
“Having said all of that, the game didn’t pan out they way we thought it would. We thought they’d set up differently to how they did and play a different shape. We had to slightly adjust how we play in the run up to kick off, but we did that last week against Stoke too. This team are fantastic at taking information and then carrying it out to the letter. Their work-rate and their effort was exceptional.
“You have to put your ego to one side when you’re playing against Swansea, because you know you’re not going to get much of the ball. But, we have a team with no egos and that is full of humility and that work for each other. You see that in abundance on the pitch, and it’s a great victory.”
The telling information that we have to take from this is that it is a consistent message that comes from the opposition managers after relative easy wins for their side. It has become increasingly obvious that our possession can be very meaningless when it comes to some games and it is in games like that in which Russell Martin needs to discover a Plan B to overcome a side that scores early and is then content to sit back, concede vast possession and look to hit us on the break.
And it will be the discovery of that Plan B that will ultimately decide whether Russell Martin is able to succeed in the way we all hope at Swansea.
