Phil SumblerThe Swans will move onto Millwall on Tuesday night still basking in the glory of Saturday’s emphatic 4-0 win over Cardiff City on their own patch but now facing a new challenge which is the continued one to finish as high up the final Championship table as we possibly can.
Back in February, when they were 17 games left in the season we looked at what may good look like and set a notional target of 21-25 points from those games to place us in a strong position going into the close season and being able to plan for next campaign.
We are broadly halfway through those games with 9 gone and 8 remaining and our tally from those 9 games was 16 points so we are well ahead of that particular target curve and now looking to press on. The 25 points we talked about in February was built on the basis that it would equate to close on play off form to finish the season (67 points from 46 games is traditionally just short of the required mark?) but right now we are on a run rate of 81 points from a 46 game season and that is a massive plus point.
If Russell Martin and his side can push towards anywhere near 13/14 points from the remaining 8 games then we can confidently approach the summer in more than good spirits and optimism ahead of next season.
Those 8 games will start tomorrow and conclude in a run that will see us at the season’s end at a little over four weeks later but you can see from the listing below that we certainly have the fixtures to pick up those points especially even in just the next four games with Derby, Barnsley and Reading all in opposition during those four games.
If Russell Martin can get his side into the top half of the table and above the mid-sixty point barrier in the remaining games of the season then we can definitely look ahead to next season with optimism.
That optimism will increase more should we manage to stop the blips that have even impacted the last nine games – heavy defeats to Sheffield United and Fulham blot the copybook – but we remember this is a season of learning and even the manager himself has admitted that when you are transitioning then days like that are always going to happen.
Saturday showed just what a Russell Martin side can be capable of and we need more of that in the coming weeks not just to end the season on a high but to make the summer targets sit up and take notice even more than they may already have been due to the work of the background teams at the football club.
So it is time to just put Saturday behind us, we have basked in the glory of creating history and we have listened to the usual “it’s not that important to us” excuses from up the M4 but the reality is we have other things now to focus on starting tomorrow and maybe a 65 point target come the end of the season is very much in our grasp. And if we get there, then that is a long long way from failure on a season of transition.
Onwards.
