Hadziabdic was part of the only Swansea City side that has won promotion to the top flight and – thirty years on – Brendan Rodgers side could repeat the feat this season as the promotion race enters it's final stretch at Preston on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Hadzabdic told the Evening Post "I am optimistic and I believe we can win promotion again. I see the style of the team and the way we play — the players are not afraid of anyone in this league. <\/p>\n
"I have watched a lot of games this season — I have been at maybe ten or 15 and have seen others on television — and I don't see a team better than Swansea.<\/p>\n
"I have seen Queens Park Rangers, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Cardiff, and I am 90 per cent sure we will go up.<\/p>\n
"I thought it at the start of the season — I told Alan Curtis and I told my neighbours that they could finish in the top two. So far, they are doing a very good job.<\/p>\n
"I think the league is weak — there are surprises every week because a lot of the good players go straight to the Premier League," Hadziabdic says.<\/p>\n
"I have watched many of the teams who come to Swansea and 75 per cent just try to defend. They play for a draw.<\/p>\n
"I have not seen much good football, and that makes Swansea different. But in many games I am shaking when we get to 75 or 80 minutes and we are only 1-0 up.<\/p>\n
"One mistake can mean a draw, and sometimes we play with too many touches, especially at home. We give the opposition a chance to settle.<\/p>\n
"We now have four strikers, with usually only one on the pitch.<\/p>\n
"I was worried when the captain (Garry Monk) was out injured. If it wasn't for (Alan) Tate, we wouldn't have had an option."<\/p>\n
Hadziabdic's biggest disappointment of the season was the home defeat by Cardiff, when "one loss of concentration" let Craig Bellamy in for a spectacular winning goal.<\/p>\n
But he remains optimistic Swansea can get over the line — and reckons it is vital they do not end up in the play-offs.<\/p>\n
"When you are in the play-offs you are gambling<\/p>\n
"Some of the Swansea players are not very experienced and when the whole season is decided in one or two games, there is lots of pressure.<\/p>\n
"Sometimes I think teams can now read Swansea very well. Managers know where Swansea are very strong, and that is with the two wingers.<\/p>\n
"Managers would try everything to stop them in the play-offs. I think (Darren) Pratley has not been as strong this year because managers have got to know about him.<\/p>\n
"The same thing happened to me when I was playing my second season for Swansea — it is harder to do well when people get to know who you are.<\/p>\n
"It's good that people remember what we did, but now we must support the current generation," he says.<\/p>\n
"This Swansea team could make history and we should think about them.<\/p>\n
"I remember one thing from our win at Preston, and that was (Bill) Shankly coming into our changing room because Toshack asked him to speak to us.<\/p>\n
"I still don't know one word he said because of his strong Scottish accent — and because I was shocked. But Toshack talked to him because he was a young manager and two heads are better than one.<\/p>\n
"Maybe now Brendan Rodgers can talk to Alan Curtis. He is the history of the club."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hadziabdic was part of the only Swansea City side that has won promotion to the top flight and – thirty years on – Brendan Rodgers side could repeat the feat this season as the promotion race enters it's final stretch at Preston on Saturday. Hadzabdic told the Evening Post "I am optimistic and I believe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}