Consistently inconsistent – Welcome to the Swansea City class of 2024

Swansea City are the very definition of a mid table side.   Six wins, five draws and seven defeats in eighteen league games this season tells you that.   A side not good enough to compete at the height of the table and also a side just good enough to keep themselves away from what will end up a dog fight at the other end of the table.

In the recent weeks since the club ownership changed hands there has been much criticism laid at the feet of the previous controllers of the club and rightly so.   Gradually over an eight year period they eroded away at most that was good about Swansea City and put us into the position that we now find ourselves in.

The inconsistencies of this squad tell you much about what that looks like at the moment.   A side that can be good enough to go toe to toe with the best sides in the division but at the same time a squad that can find itself two goals to the deficit against a side that was bottom of the league at the start of play on Saturday.

It is a squad that needs much overhaul over the coming months and not just in a January window.  Indeed there will be those that tell you that doing major overhauls in a window halfway through a season is not the right way to structure any side that needs the development that we do.   Prices are often inflated, players are not as easily obtained as maybe they are in the summer window and frankly you could easily end up throwing good money especially when it is unlikely to have any massive material impact on where we end this season.

Indeed the Swansea City owners would be well advised to bide their time through a January window and only add to the squad if the absolute right player appears at the right price.   Our squad at the moment is someway short of competing for those top six places and to try and chase it at a time when the competition is likely to increase would be foolish at best.

Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Portsmouth highlighted many of the deficiencies in this squad not least the total lack of firepower and creativity that exists.   Some will point to us scoring seven goals in the last three and claim it tells a different story but the eleven in fifteen before that tells a more accurate picture.   In the same way a defence that has also conceded seven in three is not all of a sudden a poor defence but it does highlight how far we can be from a Championship squad that can go through the gruelling effects of a forty-six game season,

Those who now sit in the corridors of power would do well in the coming months to sit there and draw up a correct list of where the squad needs strengthening.   The need for more firepower up front has been obvious for several windows now without the right delivery coming in and our midfield remains a static midfield highlighting the lack of pace that exists in so many areas across the pitch.

In the same way that so many players can put in top performances one game, their inconsistencies shine through the next when mediocrity assumes control over the performance.   For all the praise that Ronald for example got for his first twenty minutes at Derby we can highlight equal or longer periods where he has looked anything but Championship quality.  He is not alone in that statement though so not being singled out here just merely used as an example of the consistent inconsistencies that is the Swansea City squad of this season, just as the article headline tells you is the case.

In our next seven games we face Luton (twice), Plymouth, Hull, QPR and Portsmouth – all sides that currently sit in the bottom six of this division.  In between a home game against fourth placed Sunderland provides a test but you just know that there will be performances where we deem it to be “not good enough” alongside some where we look like a side that can challenge for promotion.    Seven games, will see us compete for twenty-one points but our inconsistencies will see probably a return of around ten, enough to keep us in that mid table position which we are so well suited.

At the end of the campaign that mid table position will not be a disaster especially not when you consider the off field challenges that the last few years have presented to us.   It will be interesting to see just how the change in the guard in the boardroom addresses those challenges and overcomes them because it is something that they have to do if we are to change from what we have become.

A season of transition will be one that this season ends up being remembered for only if there is a transition.   We claimed the same on the first under Russell Martin, last season and this season will become the same.  Three seasons out of four is not so much a transition but more a habit that we appear to have created.  In itself though that is not a bad habit to create – “mid table mediocrity” if you like – particularly as it highlights that the foundations are not all bad and that has to be something that gives some confidence to Andy Coleman and Co as they survey the early weeks of their tenure of control.

So whilst we sit back and wait to see what happens next we simply remember that whilst some games will be good, some average and some not so good it is merely a reflection of the Swansea City squad and foundations of 2024.   So very consistently inconsistent.   Again.