Rob Davies
All good things come to an end and some problems come crashing down to earth; this was nothing short of a disaster in the South Wales derby in a performance nothing short of hideous.
Optimism is always reasonably high ahead of these games despite league form with the respective positions in the division often having little bearing on the eventual outcome.
But this absolutely went as all the pessimistic Swans fans feared, indeed worse in many aspects at least in terms of expecting some sort of attacking football. This was undoubtedly one of our worst performance in many a year.
Bob Bradley would have been disappointed with that type of disjointed performance and it was unrecognisable from the team that swatted Cardiff City away without so much as a sweat in recent years.
It’s a depressingly reminder of how far this club is falling and will continue to fall should there not be some serious changes.
Three new players made their debut with Kristian Pedersen, Josh Tymon and Jamal Loee (for the second time) coming in in what was an unchanged formation.
Rushworth
Darling – Wood – Pederson
Key – Fulton – Grimes – Patimo – Tymon
Yates – Lowe
The first half was best described as cagey; at worst a dismal affair between two poor teams with the only concern being to not concede the opening goal. Sky Sports were probably in bemusement at their decision to air this bottom of the table Championshop affair.
Because despite all the fanfare around Cardiff City and Erol Bulut being the next Pep this world beating, globetrotting behemoth have won a mighty single game this season against bottom of the league Sheffield Wednesday.
The viewing proved this and the fact the first save of note came in first half injury time tells you the story that this wasn’t a thriller for the neutral. The save from Rusbworth was solid, denying the somehow Pele-esque Yakou Meite from close range.
So surely the second half could only be better? Well yes but it depends from which perspective you hold.
No changes from either manager at half time although a huge change in intensity from Cardiff City as the Swans struggled to contain the energetic home team.
Karlan Grant – a one time Swans loan target to be the highest paid player at the club- was causing Josh Key problems down the Cardiff left as Duff’s weak team struggled against the strength in midfield.
Home midfielder Siopis had Grimes and Fulton on the ropes repeatedly as the Bluebirds took full control of the fixture with the breakthrough eventually arriving just after the halfway point of the second half.
Duff had tried to increase the intensity by replacing two strikers – Lowe and Yates – with Paterson and Ginnelly. Because of course when you don’t like look scoring removing two strikers who can score makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
The substitution roulette was won by Bulut as one of his changes Ollie Tanner received a long ball, side stepped debutant Tymon and whipped a curling strike past a stranded Rushworth.
That noise was haunting and had it not been for weak finishing by Grant and a couple of good saves by Rusbworth (again from Meite/Pele) then the home team would have been out of sight.
It wasn’t long before the seal was put on a comfortable victory as Pedersen hauled down Tanner just inside the box to concede a penalty which of course Aaron Ramsey passed into the corner. Game over.
There was some late urgency as in added time Kukharevych and Cullen were introduced but it was a sad indictment of the current predicament in SA1 as the Swans went out with a whimper.
The away fan reaction was angry and largely aimed at Duff rather than the players for yet another dreadful show in what is turning into a bit of a nightmare. It’s only September!
Nobody could have predicted this bad a start and when you consider we are yet to play the likes of Leicester, Leeds or Southampton then worse may yet be to come.
The lack of cohesion, passion, fight and drive was an embarrassment to this proud football club. We know we won’t win every game and nor does anyone expect otherwise. But what we do expect is effoer and that isn’t what we saw yesterday.
Duff cut a forlorn figure on the sidelines during and after the match; a man lost in his thoughts, puzzled where to turn and how to arrest a slide that he pleads can be turned around.
What we’ve seen so far shows no sign of delivering the fast paced attacking football we were promised by Duff after his arrival from Barnsley in the summer and the vocal reaction on social media and in the away end yesterday speaks volume.
Two absolutely massive games this week coming where nothing less than two wins would suffice after six games and just two points. Are you confident?
I’m not.
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Would settle for one win .Letโs be sensible.
Midfield is proving to be a major problem .Grimes and Patino are hardly known as scorers .Add Joe and Fulton and weโve got a non-scoring one paced midfield.
Compare that to the midfield of Pratley ,Jordi Gomezand Ferrie Bodde
Do it now, most true jacks are sick to the teeth with back room promises and management needing time , itโs game 8 by Saturday and by game 10 duffs managerial experience should be sealed . As the pressure builds on the team to win the back room staff with all theyโre empty promises will distance him to save their face in not bringing in a experienced manager, we as fans had to suffer all the nightmare learning curves with the last manager with a end result of leaving the club like the 2 before him, we havenโt looked like winning any game so far and thatโs solely down to duff ! he seams totally out of his depth managing swansea city itโs a massive step up to complete in the championship and how much time do we give him, 2 wins in 19 games like Martin, by then we will be well and truly rooted in the bottom 3. Nows the time Do IT NOW !
We are now experiencing the effect of 7 years of selling players for sheer profit and buying with limited reinvestment. We can evaluate Duff and martin all day, but this predicament we find ourselves in is strongly linked to the owners greedy phylosophy related to the running of OUR FOOTBAL CLUB. Sack Duff, and bring in another manager, but the reality of our destiny is in the hands of Caplin and 16 or more faceless others who have no passion other than checking their bank accounts to see the cash is piling up. We has fans need to take action to remove these owners,and get some control and try to halt what could be a freefall toward div 2 or worse. They the owners will.then sell our club and probably concoct that we owe them millions.