• Due to a recent spam attack on the site we have switched user registration to require administrator approval. Please bear with us as this could take a few hours to approve new registrations (depending on availability) but all genuine registrations will be approved

Entertainment after a hard week in work.

The changes he made last season to push us further up the pitch and be more aggressive on the ball were really effective and noticeable. It's bizarre how this season we've gone back to living in our own half and being ponderous on the ball. It couldn't have ALL been LOB, right?
 
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.
I'm in the shimmy and onion bag camp.
 
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.
Spot on !
 
I don't know whether there's a stat for least number of saves by opposition keepers?
I can guarantee that we've got the least.
 
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.
That’s the key sentence for me - if we look we’re trying to win - says it all !!
 
I don't know whether there's a stat for least number of saves by opposition keepers?
I can guarantee that we've got the least.
This isn't the exact stat you're after, but in the same ball park. I can't believe there are actually 3 teams with fewer shots on target than us so far this season: linky

1761237544322.png
 
The Swans and entertainment haven’t been comfortable bedfellows since about 2015 if we’re all being honest.
But we were entertaining in League Two and One.. we had Mavericks like Trundle and Mcleod, and Robinson was unbelievable at dead balls.. we would either win 3-0, 4, 5-1 or get beat 4-0.. it was rarely boring, those players would never turn their nose up at a shot or pass, or instinctively pass backwards
 
The Swans and entertainment haven’t been comfortable bedfellows since about 2015 if we’re all being honest.
Probably coincides with when we went all ‘moneyball’.

I wouldn’t be surprised if players with genuine flair just don’t score well enough in the endless statistical analysis we now seem to carry out in order to recruit.

If you are relying on stats you will probably end up with ‘safe’ players. And a team of ‘safe’ players leads to the drudgery we are now used to watching. Not many mistakes, good pass completion, lots of kilometres covered and no creativity.
 
But we were entertaining in League Two and One.. we had Mavericks like Trundle and Mcleod, and Robinson was unbelievable at dead balls.. we would either win 3-0, 4, 5-1 or get beat 4-0.. it was rarely boring, those players would never turn their nose up at a shot or pass, or instinctively pass backwards
And not afraid to take shots as you say or try adventurous passes.
 
But we were entertaining in League Two and One.. we had Mavericks like Trundle and Mcleod, and Robinson was unbelievable at dead balls.. we would either win 3-0, 4, 5-1 or get beat 4-0.. it was rarely boring, those players would never turn their nose up at a shot or pass, or instinctively pass backwards
Completely agree.
 
Probably coincides with when we went all ‘moneyball’.

I wouldn’t be surprised if players with genuine flair just don’t score well enough in the endless statistical analysis we now seem to carry out in order to recruit.

If you are relying on stats you will probably end up with ‘safe’ players. And a team of ‘safe’ players leads to the drudgery we are now used to watching. Not many mistakes, good pass completion, lots of kilometres covered and no creativity.
Someone made a comment the other day about coaching/recruitment these days being focused more on finding athletes you can coach to play football rather than finding footballers first and foremost, and there might be something to that.
 
Someone made a comment the other day about coaching/recruitment these days being focused more on finding athletes you can coach to play football rather than finding footballers first and foremost, and there might be something to that.
Same has happened in rugby. And it’s absolute crap to watch these days compared to how it used to be.
 
But we were entertaining in League Two and One.. we had Mavericks like Trundle and Mcleod, and Robinson was unbelievable at dead balls.. we would either win 3-0, 4, 5-1 or get beat 4-0.. it was rarely boring, those players would never turn their nose up at a shot or pass, or instinctively pass backwards
Imagine how bad Trunds would have looked on a statistical analysis though. We’d have never recruited him these days,

It’s why we are boring.
 
Same has happened in rugby. And it’s absolute crap to watch these days compared to how it used to be.

I've been wondering if football as a whole is changing so much that we all something that's rapidly going out of fashion.

Basically like turning up at a chess match expecting blood and thunder entertainment
 

Swansea City 🦢 v Norwich 🐥

Back
Top