{"id":54718,"date":"2022-02-11T08:30:45","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T08:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging28.planetswans.co.uk\/?p=54718"},"modified":"2022-02-11T08:02:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T08:02:26","slug":"what-does-good-look-like-in-a-season-of-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/2022\/02\/11\/what-does-good-look-like-in-a-season-of-transition\/","title":{"rendered":"What does good look like in a ‘season of transition’?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Swans prepare to welcome Bristol City to the Swansea.com stadium on Sunday, we go into the game in 17th place in the table, two points behind our visitors but within seven points of the top half of the table.<\/p>\n

And whilst a position seventh from the bottom of the league is not necessarily one that you can take comfort from we should be assured that this is by no means a relegation scrap as the bottom three places look almost certain to be contested by just four teams given they are ten points adrift from the bottom of the league.\u00a0 Of course some would argue that the nature of that bottom four is helped by a six point deduction for Reading and a twenty-one point deduction from Derby but the facts are that three of those four teams are almost certain to be relegated.<\/p>\n

We always knew this would be a season of transition for the Swans.\u00a0 \u00a0Two successive play off campaigns were a great achievement under Steve Cooper but the moment Brentford took the spoils at Wembley this was never going to be anything other than a season when we regrouped ourselves.<\/p>\n

We have talked before about the number of changes<\/a><\/strong> we had from that day in Wembley and that in itself tells the story of how much we had to stop, focus and start again this season.\u00a0 \u00a0That task was not helped by the fact that the manager last season knew he didn’t want to be part of that – again, not a criticism just a statement of fact – and the way that panned out over the course of last summer has been well documented so no point in covering that again.<\/p>\n

A new manager coming in pretty much on the eve of the season is not helpful and to that part we know that the new manager has only had one full transfer window and a few weeks to do his work.\u00a0 \u00a0And that was not helped by the time he had arrived we had already spent big on Joel Piroe meaning that departures had to fund arrivals.\u00a0 \u00a0And with a new manager comes new ideas with another much forgotten one of those being the retention of Matt Grimes.\u00a0 Had Russell Martin not been here then I have little doubt neither would our captain.\u00a0 \u00a0He was set for moves away, clubs wanted him, the Swans were happy to sell but the manager wanted to build his midfield around him and Grimes stayed.\u00a0 \u00a0 And that meant a smaller transfer budget for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

With the new manager as well came a different philosophy.\u00a0 A return to the Swansea way was how it was heralded which meant that the season of a rebuild also became a season of transition.\u00a0 A season where mistakes would be made, where matches would be lost and a season where we would find out about whether players could fit into that philosophy.<\/p>\n

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Where will the Swans finish this season?<\/strong><\/p>

    \n\t\t
  • Play Offs (2%, 1 Votes)<\/small>
    <\/div><\/li>\n\t\t
  • 7th-12th (17%, 10 Votes)<\/small>
    <\/div><\/li>\n\t\t
  • 13th-17th (67%, 39 Votes)<\/small>
    <\/div><\/li>\n\t\t
  • 18th-24th (14%, 8 Votes)<\/small>
    <\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul>

    Total Voters: 58<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\n<\/div>\n

    \"Loading Loading ...<\/div>\n\n

    It became clear that some could fit, some couldn’t and some probably are but are either still learning or will not be able to take it to the levels that we, or more importantly the manager, potentially want.\u00a0 \u00a0Half of the side on Tuesday night were Russell Martin’s players with further additions on the bench but the budgetary restraints at the club mean he wants – and needs – more and that some of his players may not be here next season because of their loan deals.<\/p>\n

    The manager knows there is more work to be done – “This team is going to look very different physically next season. The physical profile of our players – the ones we currently have, whoever we bring in – is going to be very different,” he said after the humiliating defeat at Stoke on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

    So when we factor in all of that together we ask the question as to what good looks like. Partly in terms of league position come the end of the season in May and partly in terms of the way the team appears to be progressing.\u00a0 There have been signs of that progression this season and we can all see what Martin is trying to achieve but there is criticism of the style, the play and the way that we compete in the games.\u00a0 \u00a0And of course the results.\u00a0 And that criticism is justified at times, nobody wants to see us play at Stoke and not even come close to competing with them.<\/p>\n

    We cast our mind back to October when results were good, wins were plentiful and there was a real play off dream amongst the supporters again.\u00a0 The likes of Peterborough, Cardiff and West Brom were all beaten in SA1 and you sensed that good times were around the corner. October was replaced by a dismal run of form that saw us take four points from twenty-one between Halloween and Christmas before a Covid related break saw us go five weeks without a league fixture.\u00a0 Since then it has been eight points from seven games – not a disaster but that means the last fourteen league games have yielded just eleven points.\u00a0 \u00a0That is simply not good enough even in a season of transition.\u00a0 Or more simply put over the course of a season that is a one way ticket out of the Championship in most seasons.\u00a0 \u00a0And not in the right direction.<\/p>\n

    So right now our season of transition is not yielding what we want it to.\u00a0 \u00a0Or even what we need it to.\u00a0 \u00a0 There are some high points recently, here I particularly point to the second half at Huddersfield but we cannot cling to strong 45 minute performances here and there we need that to become the norm and we are not there yet.\u00a0 \u00a0What that Huddersfield half did show though is that we are capable of that kind of performance and that has to be our benchmark.\u00a0 \u00a0Almost every Swansea fan would accept that kind of performance during games even if it meant we ended this season still in the bottom half.\u00a0 It would give a glimmer of hope that with a full summer window and a pre-season ahead of us optimism could be high ahead of next term.<\/p>\n

    There are seventeen games left this season and those are the ones that we should be focusing on.\u00a0 \u00a0We should be setting ourselves a points target within those games which will increase confidence everywhere around SA1.\u00a0 \u00a0Seventeen games, twenty-five points as an example would be a season’s run rate of 67 points – not quite play off form but a massive step in the right direction.\u00a0 \u00a0Even twenty-one points would equate to a 56\/57 point season which is comfortable mid table form and allow us to build on that over the summer.\u00a0 \u00a0So for me we need to be aiming for that 21-25 points (or more) bracket over the remainder of the season – something we are more than capable of achieving with the squad that we have and both of them a step up from our last fourteen games.<\/p>\n

    On top of that, as important as points are we have to look at performances.\u00a0 Russell Martin will want marked improvements on several performances of late and whilst he points to other games where we have wasted chances these become more magnified when we create fewer and fewer chances.\u00a0 The manager talks about us being brave with the ball – it is now time for us to be as brave in the final third of the field as we can be in our defensive third.<\/p>\n

    Finally we need to be clear that this season is not a disaster.\u00a0 \u00a0There have been some real low points in it but similarly there have been some highs (not as many as we would like)\u00a0 The reality is we are probably entrenched in a group of teams between around 11th and 20th and our aim is surely to finish as high in that group as we possibly can and if we can do that then confidence could well be high ahead of what will be a big summer for both Russell Martin and the Swans.<\/p>\n

    That probably sets out the hopes of next season.\u00a0 \u00a0Some will point to a play off team turning into someone happy with a mid table finish but unfortunately that was the reality for us this season and anything else was to be a bonus.\u00a0 \u00a0We’re not there yet and more time is needed and the real gauge of what Russell Martin can do with a Swansea City side and his philosophy will become more evident as next season unfolds.<\/p>\n

    Time will tell and of course thirteen wins from seventeen will see us in the play offs…had to end by raising a smile!<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As the Swans prepare to welcome Bristol City to the Swansea.com stadium on Sunday, we go into the game in 17th place in the table, two points behind our visitors but within seven points of the top half of the table. And whilst a position seventh from the bottom of the league is not necessarily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[293,49,203],"tags":[608],"class_list":["post-54718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-team","category-news","category-opinion","tag-the-2021-22-season"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54718","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}