Williams rues missed chances but it is the transfer policy that is to blame

Swansea City are currently paying the price for yet another transfer window where lessons were supposed to have been learned and would not be repeated.  Missed chances was the statement from Luke Williams but the simply reality is our upper management team have yet again failed to deliver a squad that is enough to compete week in week out in the Championship.

The signs are very clear that we have a long hard season ahead of us.   Almost six matches have passed since Liam Cullen scored against Bristol City and the Swans have won just three games all season.   Defensively we look strong but are punished for some mistakes (yesterday’s winner being a classic example) whilst the fact that we missed chances is highlighted greater by the fact that we just do not make many in the first place.   This is a side where the creativity has slowly been sucked out of it by a constant policy of selling on our best players but failing to replace them adequately.

Andy Coleman can talk much about wanting to recreate the Swansea Way but this was as much about what we did off the pitch as what we do on it and right now neither of these aspects of the club come anywhere near what any of us would fondly remember as the heady days of the Swansea way between 2008 and 2013.

We are working the football club on the cheap and whilst this is a commendable approach to keeping the football club sustainable the method is littered with purchases of several million pounds – Kuharevych, Yates, Vipotnik and Bianchini app spring to mind and each of them look so far out of their depth at this level it is little wonder the financial side of the club needs constant topping up.  This isn’t owner generosity, this is owners covering up for their total incompetence in a football transfer market.

Mind you given the total lack of creativity in our side it is little wonder that we have a list of attacking players above that have struggled to score.   Some would even argue that someone like Haaland would struggle to score many in a side that is static to watch at the best of times and the lack of clear goalscoring chances it is little wonder that we have had zero goals for five consecutive games.   In those five games we have had just fourteen shots on target with ten of those coming in the two home games.   Is it any wonder we are struggling to score a goal.

Compare that to our average over those five games of 67% possession and you have the full picture as to where the struggles are and for all the reflection back on missed chances, the words of Luke Williams are just masking the true problems that we have at the club.

In the last games the Swans have averaged 67% possession but under 3 shots on target per game

Right now it would be easy to blame the manager and ultimately they are usually the people who take the fall for a bad run of results but this runs deeper than this, it comes from a systematic dismantling over time of everything that was good about Swansea City.   We should never forget that when this ownership group first came sniffing we were a pretty well established Premier League club and now we are a side who realistically could very easily be in League One next season.  Our hope this time is that there are three clubs worse than us but another year of people like Andy Coleman overseeing transfers ad we will get weaker and weaker.   At that point the Swansea Way will be something we tell our grandchildren about and not something we witness on a weekly basis.

Anyway, back to the comments of Williams and a very odd claim that we had thirteen shots on target.   Well, there were five and arguably only Josh Key’s was one that really tested the keeper.   You cannot count a pathetic back pass shot from Peart-Harris or an embarrassing header from Bianchini that missed the target from six yards as shots although happy to concede that they were very good chances.

“I think we are beyond frustration now, to be honest, it’s just disappointment,” said Williams.

“We have had enough chances to win the games three times over, but we didn’t.

“Not only did we not win it, but we fall asleep and lose the game. It’s incredible really, so we are very disappointed.

“We have had plenty of chances and did not score again, we have had 18 shots on goal, 13 of them have been on target, and we have had 70 per cent of the game.

“I don’t think anyone can say we are not creating chances, it’s not a lack of creativity, or effort or organisation.

“We just have to be more clinical.

“I know there is a lot of noise but we have to get on with it because that’s part of being in the Championship.”

You have to feel sorry for Williams.   He is given a squad that simply is not deep enough to be in the Championship.   Our issue is that we have too many players who should be playing a part in a squad but are relied upon week on week to start games and that tells you another part of a story.  I would also add mind the odd perception that our players cannot play three games in a week when we largely fail to break sweat in ninety minutes is a bit strange but I guess that’s football talk and probably written in one of the text books somewhere.

I don’t blame Luke Williams for this as he has had zero backing to do the job he wants and you can guarantee that the players we signed in the summer came in not off the back of his recommendation but a transfer policy that has failed time and time again.   And we all know what happens when we do the same things and expect different results.

Our problems currently land at the feet of Steve Kaplan, Jason Levien, Andy Coleman, Jake Silverstein and anyone else who is heavily involved from our invisible ownership group.   You can add Paul Watson into that as well.   And while most of these people are still involved at the club then nothing will change.   And the Swansea Way that the new generation will remember is one where we bought cheap, sold at average levels and played a style of football that was as far from entertaining as you can get.

And that is how it is this Sunday morning.