Monk – I Want My Players To Express Themselves

The Swans became the first side to score twice in the Premier League since they managed it at the front end of last season showing just the intent that Monk wants his team to show this season.

It would have been very easy to head to Stamford Bridge on Saturday with a defensive line up but when you pick a team that includes Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jonjo Shelvey, Andre Ayew, Bafetimbi Gomis and Jefferson Montero then you know what signs the manager is sending out and he should be applauded for it as well.

Too many sides in our position afford the opposition too much respect and whilst we know that they have more talent than we do then it just goes to show that with the right viewpoint you can more than scare a side that on paper was expected to win quite easily.

Monk has a history of causing league upsets – reference league doubles over Manchester United and Arsenal last season – and this time around he wants his players to express themselves as best they can in the games

“It’s about us and the message I want to send to my players. That’s what I worry about. What other teams come and do here is nothing to do with us.

“What we did was more about the message I wanted for my team. We’ve been on the front foot all pre-season and I feel we can be on the front foot for the majority of this campaign.

“We always want to try to dominate games and get on the front foot and where a better place than the home of the champions.

“Yes, there are going to be times when we have to be more defensive as we were last season but on the whole I wanted to send the message to the players to go out there and really express themselves and work on what we have been doing and I thought we did that. I thought we showed that time and time again and I thought we created some great opportunities to score goals.”

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