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Entertainment after a hard week in work.

Cadoxton Jack

Youth Team Apprentice
Joined
Aug 20, 2025
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Life is hard no matter what age you are these days. The most loyal swans fans turn up every week but there are more and more turning their backs on match days. The football is boring , predictable , lethargic and NOT entertaining. This is a big worry for the ownership group as match day attendance will undoubtedly continue to fall. People saying Sheehan needs to change the way he plays but that is very unlikely. We’re set up not to lose where most fans want to be set up to win - after a hard week in work that’s the least we should expect.
 
It’s results even more than entertainment in my view. If we played like a Tony Pulis team and were in the top two there would be loads more people there. Many of them couldn’t give a damn about entertainment because winning football is entertaining however it’s played.
Entertainment becomes more of a factor when we’re clearly neither going up nor down. The midweek games are all on Sky too so a wet Wednesday at the stadium is far less attractive than a couple of cans on the sofa.
More people want to watch a winning team whether it’s “entertaining” or not. If it is entertaining as well that’s an added bonus.
 
It’s results even more than entertainment in my view. If we played like a Tony Pulis team and were in the top two there would be loads more people there. Many of them couldn’t give a damn about entertainment because winning football is entertaining however it’s played.
Entertainment becomes more of a factor when we’re clearly neither going up nor down. The midweek games are all on Sky too so a wet Wednesday at the stadium is far less attractive than a couple of cans on the sofa.
More people want to watch a winning team whether it’s “entertaining” or not. If it is entertaining as well that’s an added bonus.

That’s a great post Joe,is there anyone that doesn’t want us playing like Brazil from the 70’s?
Unfortunately that’s not how football works.
 
Life is hard no matter what age you are these days. The most loyal swans fans turn up every week but there are more and more turning their backs on match days. The football is boring , predictable , lethargic and NOT entertaining. This is a big worry for the ownership group as match day attendance will undoubtedly continue to fall. People saying Sheehan needs to change the way he plays but that is very unlikely. We’re set up not to lose where most fans want to be set up to win - after a hard week in work that’s the least we should expect.
As mentioned in the other post.

I can't speak for others. But the grind of work and mental health, I look forward to match days as a way to forget about my problems. I don't expect to win, but I want to be entertained.
 
Life is hard no matter what age you are these days. The most loyal swans fans turn up every week but there are more and more turning their backs on match days. The football is boring , predictable , lethargic and NOT entertaining. This is a big worry for the ownership group as match day attendance will undoubtedly continue to fall. People saying Sheehan needs to change the way he plays but that is very unlikely. We’re set up not to lose where most fans want to be set up to win - after a hard week in work that’s the least we should expect.

Good points, but you missed another very important factor.

Most EFL clubs - and we are by no means alone in this - get their pricing wrong. We've been in a de facto cost of living crisis since the banking crash in 2008. Most people are gradually getting poorer. Yet they want to charge up to £35-40 a pop in some cases. Couple that with the lack of entertainment value, and people will decide they can find better value for money elsewhere.

It really winds me up to see clubs with vast swathes of seats covered with tarpaulins. They'd rather do that, than bring the prices down to make it accessible to more people's pockets. It's just greed, and it's short sighted as well in the long term.
 
It’s results even more than entertainment in my view. If we played like a Tony Pulis team and were in the top two there would be loads more people there. Many of them couldn’t give a damn about entertainment because winning football is entertaining however it’s played.
It's a fine balance here. If we win 1-0 with 70% possession and loads of back sideways and back, then with 2 shots on target one of which is a goal, then not for me. For a team over 46 games and getting promotion, then as well as winning, they are also invariably pacy and entertaining
 
We bored our way to promotion under John Hollins and I loved it.
 
I think 'entertainment' isn't quite the right word, as people can be entertained in different ways...winning...good football...excitement...or, to be blunt, just being there pissed up for many away fans that I've seen, no matter what's happening on the pitch 😆. I used to be entertained watching us play lovely little triangles of technical brilliance...but they had a purpose.

Not sure this is the right word either, but I want to feel engaged with what's going on, and the main reason I stopped travelling, apart from my father's death, is that I was infrequently engaged with what was happening. It was so often like watching painting by numbers. Nothing to grab your attention at all and pull you into really caring about what was happening as it's all so sterile, even when it works. I used to kick every ball. Now I can hardly even stay in front of the telly and often go and do something else for 10 or 15 minutes.

I must still care, or I wouldn't be writing this, hoping fervently it gets better.
 
Then again, as Joe said, if we won, I'd go home happy. I found Tosh's team the most exciting to watch of all our teams, but I remember a home game with Blackpool that was truly awful, and I was freezing. Charlo scored with a header in injury time, and I left happy as Larry (and Larry was very happy).

maybe if we just look as if we are trying to win, that would help.
 
It's a fine balance here. If we win 1-0 with 70% possession and loads of back sideways and back, then with 2 shots on target one of which is a goal, then not for me. For a team over 46 games and getting promotion, then as well as winning, they are also invariably pacy and entertaining
They go hand in hand. I do not think you can get promoted or win consistently playing like that with so few shots. Even the most boring or cautious promotion chasing sides rank much higher for chances created and do not consistently games with barely any touches in the box or shots.

I think our fanbase is generally fair and rational. There is no one calling for kamikaze football or all out attack and 5 goals a game. I do not think people even want a particular style of play. Just it has been hard to watch us from the opening day, knowing the drop off in results would come if we continue to create so little. That drop off has now come and it was solely the results that were keeping people positive.

It seems like the club are leaning hard into the data nowadays so they will be more aware of any of this than anyone.

24th for touches in the box - 179, Wrexham are 22nd with 196.
24th for big chances missed - 9, so it is not like we have been unlucky.

Internally there must be huge worries about what has happened.
 
I think I've probably said before, I couldn't care less if we went full-hoofball if we ended up in the top 2. There's far too much pressure on playing 'beautiful, passing football'. In fact, I think in most cases it's actually got quite boring with many teams trying and failing, passing around the back needlessly. I've also said before that a long-range diagonal pass to a winger or a big man up front is also a thing of beauty.

At the end of the day, it feels better if the performance looks shit and we win 2-0, rather than a game full of sexy passing and losing 1-0.
 
If we could see some desire to get forward, that would be good start for me.
It's so maddening to see players get played into space, either out wide or (very rarely for us) centrally and as soon as they come up against the slightest resistance, stop, put their foot on the ball and pass back - usually to a defender - and then stroll off like they've done us all a solid. I get that it's not as simple as just waltzing up there, do a shimmy and stick it in the onion bag, but it's just so normalized now to play this way I sometimes question whether all the football that happened for the preceding 100+ years ever actually happened.
 
It's so maddening to see players get played into space, either out wide or (very rarely for us) centrally and as soon as they come up against the slightest resistance, stop, put their foot on the ball and pass back - usually to a defender - and then stroll off like they've done us all a solid. I get that it's not as simple as just waltzing up there, do a shimmy and stick it in the onion bag, but it's just so normalized now to play this way I sometimes question whether all the football that happened for the preceding 100+ years ever actually happened.

Under Sheehan last season we were regularly shooting from distance, getting the crowd on their feet, getting some momentum, etc.

All that seems to have stopped now. Very easy to defend against if you know that the opposition aren't going to have a pop as you can stand off at your leisure.
 

Swansea City 🦢 v Norwich 🐥

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