Of course it doesn’t. You get yourself to the top of the league for a reason. Along the way you will lose some games and naturally it is disappointing that one bad result sees us outside the automatic promotion spots. But with 33 games to go, and the Swans in 3rd place I can’t say I see the need to panic just at this moment in time.
For Saturday’s game for a few reasons we were without Adebayo Akinfenwa, Paul Connor, Sam Ricketts, Owain Tudur-Jones and Kevin McLeod. All who could feasibly have been within our matchday squad of sixteen had we had them available. Five players all of whom have made an impact this season when on the pitch for the Swans.
In addition to that we knew that Yeovil were a good side and we also knew that we had never got anything at their place in two previous visits. I do think that Yeovil were not as good as the side that won promotion last season but that is a side issue – they beat us and deserved to.
Next Saturday against Oldham at White Rock we should see the return of Bayo, Ricketts and OTJ as a bare minimum and you would probably expect all three to come straight into the starting line up. That makes us stronger at an instant. Kenny Jackett will also be aware that he needs to get his side back to winning ways – just as easily as winning became a habit in late August and September, losing can become a habit if you let it happen too often.
I honestly believe we are too good for that. I have seen enough of the Swans this season to know that the side that played against Yeovil on Saturday was not the norm. We lacked the ability to play the ball on the floor and the long ball against the likes of Skiverton and Sodje is going to give you little change, and so it proved. In recent games we have kept the ball on the floor and passed it around and we are good at that. That is why I think so many get irritated when we don’t do it for whatever reason.
I think we will see in the long run that Saturday was a one off rather than the shape of things to come. We haven’t played that badly for quite some while and I realy hope that it will be some time before we play that badly again. The next three games are very winnable from our point of view and anything in excess of six points from those three games will see us in the top three going into the FA Cup first round on Bonfire weekend.
Disappointed at last weekend most definitely. Despondent? Definitely not. As I said right at the outset, good teams do not become a bad team overnight and I do like to think that we are still a good team. Only time will tell