Planet Swans ArchivesDon’t get me wrong here, I am not losing the plot or indeed ignoring a pretty poor run of form that started madly enough with a victory at Cardiff City.
At that point everything was going our way – nothing Brendan could do looked wrong and the side had overcome the ‘tippy tappy’ football of last season and had developed a cutting edge to their game that surely was good enough to take us to the Premier League.
Since then though it has been a step backwards. The ‘tippy tappy’ stuff is back and the triangular passing is back in evidence with no real threat to goal. Margianlly more entertaining than a Paulo Sousa selection but not much more. At least not at the moment anyway. But that can change and – strangely – it can change without the widespread need to bring in endless new faces as is natural for people to call for at this point in time.
What is needed though is some team changes. A midfield trio of Mark Gower, Andrea Orlandi and Joe Allen simply does not work. It’s lightweight and has no real creativity involved in it. And it also has pretty much no goals in it as well. 261 Swansea appearances between them have yielded just 6 goals – 3 for Allen, 2 for Orlandi and 1 for Gower. On that basis we can expect them to contribute between them 3 a season, Joe already has 2!!
I really do wonder what Kemy Augustien has done to be constantly benched at the moment. Every time we have seen him in action he has impressed and shown that there is creativity within his game that is severely lacking around the team at the moment. Lining him up in the middle alongside any two of Gower, Allen, Orlandi and Pratley will make a difference.
I also look at the decreasing form of Dyer and Sinclair. Dyer still remains at the fore of the game much of the time and I can only put that down to his partnership with Rangel. The two of them link well together – and have done all season – which always seems to give us a threat down the right. It is a threat though that is being neutralised as teams realise this and are slowly taking that part of the game out of play. Add in the inability of the midfield trio to get the ball out to them and it adds to the problem.
On the left there isn’t the same kind of partnership. Alan Tate is a Swansea legend in my eye and always will be but what he isn’t at the moment is a player on form. Neil Taylor needs to come in and play some games and mix things up a bit. Genuinely nothing against Tate because I think he is fantastic but he does need a spell on the sidelines and Taylor is a replacement who can help us out.
Now I look up front and see Craig Beattie with many calls for Dobbie to replace him. Here I totally disagree. Dobbie at this moment would make no difference because we do not create the chances. How many chances has Beattie missed in the last two games? The ball isn’t being used well and that is causing the lack of goals not the personnel in the lone striker role.
We go into Christmas in a fantastic position in 4th place in the league and we can rise higher over the next five months but we do need to make changes and with four games coming up in little over a week starting on Boxing Day, we need to make those changes now to build on what we have done.
No need to panic but tweaks needed and soon. I know it. You know it. Surely Brendan does as well?
