Should We Really Be Surprised At The Result Yesterday ?

I have been asking myself this question since the end of the match yesterday evening and having had time to reflect the answer is,NO.

Having watched derby games for 5 decades now there has always been one constant and that is the Jack players are more up for it than ours. That was clear again yesterday from the very first to the last kick of the game and, in my opinion, with the exception of the Ramsey and Bellamy inspired victory 3 years ago, has been the case throughout the last 50 years. Quite why I have never understood but one thing I'm certain about is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the colour of the shirt or the design of the badge on it. In fact over the last 50 years we have won only 3 of 22 league matches in Swansea, and we have only worn red in one of those games and that was yesterday. The reality is Swansea area better team than us with a squad better placed to compete, both home and away, in this division than we are and thoroughly deserved the win yesterday.

So taking the emotive nonsense out of this I believe yesterdays result was completely foreseeable because lets face it we have been in freefall for some months. In fact you only have to look back to 7th December last year, when we lost against Crystal Palace, to understand that this season we have been pretty much easy opponents away from home. Other away performances like Villa are further examples that demonstrate why only Fulham have a worst away record than us.

When you add to the mix our inability to turn the CCS into a fortress then we have the perfect recipe for relegation and, in my opinion, we are at risk of failng to get the win we badly need on Tuesday evening against Villa. Despite the league position, only a few points ahead of the relegation places, Villa currently have the 5th best away defensive record in the PL, and as West Ham and Southampton both have better away defensive records and have both won at CCS the writing is on the wall.

In my opinion OGS has done his best to bring players into the club that could have a positive effect on the team performance but 3 of those players, (Jones, Fabio & Zaha) have played less than 1000 minutes PL gametime this season. Jones has over 800 of those minutes so it shouldn't really surprise us that the other two lack match sharpness and I think that is clearly evident in thier performances so far. Will they improve? almost certainly yes but how long will it be before we see that improvement.

At the start of the season our team was showing the togetherness and determination we had come to expect from MM teams but there was also evidence that determination alone was not going to get us where we wanted to be. Questions started to be asked about how good a summer had we had in the transfer market as it was becoming clear there were serious shortcomings in the squad. Then VT stepped in with the bonus debacle swiftly followed by the sacking of Moody and finally the undermining and eventual sacking of MM. All of this, in my opinion, has served only to undermine confidence throughout the club, players and fans.

Blame is probably too strong a word but VT,MM and IM have all had a part to play in where we find ourselves today and sadly OGS has been left to pick up the pieces.

Sadly unless there is a massive improvement, and quickly, then I think we will struggle to win more than 30- 33 points and that will simply not be enough to see us maintain our PL status.

I have been asking myself this question since the end of the match yesterday evening and having had time to reflect the answer is,NO.

Having watched derby games for 5 decades now there has always been one constant and that is the Jack players are more up for it than ours. That was clear again yesterday from the very first to the last kick of the game and, in my opinion, with the exception of the Ramsey and Bellamy inspired victory 3 years ago, has been the case throughout the last 50 years. Quite why I have never understood but one thing I'm certain about is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the colour of the shirt or the design of the badge on it. In fact over the last 50 years we have won only 3 of 22 league matches in Swansea, and we have only worn red in one of those games and that was yesterday. The reality is Swansea area better team than us with a squad better placed to compete, both home and away, in this division than we are and thoroughly deserved the win yesterday.

So taking the emotive nonsense out of this I believe yesterdays result was completely foreseeable because lets face it we have been in freefall for some months. In fact you only have to look back to 7th December last year, when we lost against Crystal Palace, to understand that this season we have been pretty much easy opponents away from home. Other away performances like Villa are further examples that demonstrate why only Fulham have a worst away record than us.

When you add to the mix our inability to turn the CCS into a fortress then we have the perfect recipe for relegation and, in my opinion, we are at risk of failng to get the win we badly need on Tuesday evening against Villa. Despite the league position, only a few points ahead of the relegation places, Villa currently have the 5th best away defensive record in the PL, and as West Ham and Southampton both have better away defensive records and have both won at CCS the writing is on the wall.

In my opinion OGS has done his best to bring players into the club that could have a positive effect on the team performance but 3 of those players, (Jones, Fabio & Zaha) have played less than 1000 minutes PL gametime this season. Jones has over 800 of those minutes so it shouldn't really surprise us that the other two lack match sharpness and I think that is clearly evident in thier performances so far. Will they improve? almost certainly yes but how long will it be before we see that improvement.

At the start of the season our team was showing the togetherness and determination we had come to expect from MM teams but there was also evidence that determination alone was not going to get us where we wanted to be. Questions started to be asked about how good a summer had we had in the transfer market as it was becoming clear there were serious shortcomings in the squad. Then VT stepped in with the bonus debacle swiftly followed by the sacking of Moody and finally the undermining and eventual sacking of MM. All of this, in my opinion, has served only to undermine confidence throughout the club, players and fans.

Blame is probably too strong a word but VT,MM and IM have all had a part to play in where we find ourselves today and sadly OGS has been left to pick up the pieces.

Sadly unless there is a massive improvement, and quickly, then I think we will struggle to win more than 30- 33 points and that will simply not be enough to see us maintain our PL status.

Great post, one thing that worries me is the amount of our fans that say we have the teams at home which we can beat to stay up, and of course they are right, but because we are not picking up many points away from home (especially earlier on in the season when on paper they looked a lot easier) the pressure to now win at home is mounting, all home games are just about becoming "must win" situations and that's what worries me.

I have been asking myself this question since the end of the match yesterday evening and having had time to reflect the answer is,NO.

Having watched derby games for 5 decades now there has always been one constant and that is the Jack players are more up for it than ours. That was clear again yesterday from the very first to the last kick of the game and, in my opinion, with the exception of the Ramsey and Bellamy inspired victory 3 years ago, has been the case throughout the last 50 years. Quite why I have never understood but one thing I'm certain about is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the colour of the shirt or the design of the badge on it. In fact over the last 50 years we have won only 3 of 22 league matches in Swansea, and we have only worn red in one of those games and that was yesterday. The reality is Swansea area better team than us with a squad better placed to compete, both home and away, in this division than we are and thoroughly deserved the win yesterday.

So taking the emotive nonsense out of this I believe yesterdays result was completely foreseeable because lets face it we have been in freefall for some months. In fact you only have to look back to 7th December last year, when we lost against Crystal Palace, to understand that this season we have been pretty much easy opponents away from home. Other away performances like Villa are further examples that demonstrate why only Fulham have a worst away record than us.

When you add to the mix our inability to turn the CCS into a fortress then we have the perfect recipe for relegation and, in my opinion, we are at risk of failng to get the win we badly need on Tuesday evening against Villa. Despite the league position, only a few points ahead of the relegation places, Villa currently have the 5th best away defensive record in the PL, and as West Ham and Southampton both have better away defensive records and have both won at CCS the writing is on the wall.

In my opinion OGS has done his best to bring players into the club that could have a positive effect on the team performance but 3 of those players, (Jones, Fabio & Zaha) have played less than 1000 minutes PL gametime this season. Jones has over 800 of those minutes so it shouldn't really surprise us that the other two lack match sharpness and I think that is clearly evident in thier performances so far. Will they improve? almost certainly yes but how long will it be before we see that improvement.

At the start of the season our team was showing the togetherness and determination we had come to expect from MM teams but there was also evidence that determination alone was not going to get us where we wanted to be. Questions started to be asked about how good a summer had we had in the transfer market as it was becoming clear there were serious shortcomings in the squad. Then VT stepped in with the bonus debacle swiftly followed by the sacking of Moody and finally the undermining and eventual sacking of MM. All of this, in my opinion, has served only to undermine confidence throughout the club, players and fans.

Blame is probably too strong a word but VT,MM and IM have all had a part to play in where we find ourselves today and sadly OGS has been left to pick up the pieces.

Sadly unless there is a massive improvement, and quickly, then I think we will struggle to win more than 30- 33 points and that will simply not be enough to see us maintain our PL status.

I think when most people saw the starting line up yesterday particularly Kim and whitts they knew it was going to be an uphill battle.
Coincidentally the three players that ole brought in who you rightly state have limited amounts of appearance time this season were the three players substituted.
Perhaps he should have started with noone and Campbell and brought jones and Zaha on later in the match to make an impact.
Let's just hope it was a bad day at the office for ole and he learns from it.

Biggest mistake was not playing noone,he's on fire at the moment.Terrible team selection Imo and brings into question oles tactical ability.

Did I expect a win away from home against rivals? No.

Did I expect some heart shown and an appropriate team selection? Yes. We didn't get that and therein lies the problem.

I have been asking myself this question since the end of the match yesterday evening and having had time to reflect the answer is,NO.

Having watched derby games for 5 decades now there has always been one constant and that is the Jack players are more up for it than ours. That was clear again yesterday from the very first to the last kick of the game and, in my opinion, with the exception of the Ramsey and Bellamy inspired victory 3 years ago, has been the case throughout the last 50 years. Quite why I have never understood but one thing I'm certain about is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the colour of the shirt or the design of the badge on it. In fact over the last 50 years we have won only 3 of 22 league matches in Swansea, and we have only worn red in one of those games and that was yesterday. The reality is Swansea area better team than us with a squad better placed to compete, both home and away, in this division than we are and thoroughly deserved the win yesterday.

So taking the emotive nonsense out of this I believe yesterdays result was completely foreseeable because lets face it we have been in freefall for some months. In fact you only have to look back to 7th December last year, when we lost against Crystal Palace, to understand that this season we have been pretty much easy opponents away from home. Other away performances like Villa are further examples that demonstrate why only Fulham have a worst away record than us.

When you add to the mix our inability to turn the CCS into a fortress then we have the perfect recipe for relegation and, in my opinion, we are at risk of failng to get the win we badly need on Tuesday evening against Villa. Despite the league position, only a few points ahead of the relegation places, Villa currently have the 5th best away defensive record in the PL, and as West Ham and Southampton both have better away defensive records and have both won at CCS the writing is on the wall.

In my opinion OGS has done his best to bring players into the club that could have a positive effect on the team performance but 3 of those players, (Jones, Fabio & Zaha) have played less than 1000 minutes PL gametime this season. Jones has over 800 of those minutes so it shouldn't really surprise us that the other two lack match sharpness and I think that is clearly evident in thier performances so far. Will they improve? almost certainly yes but how long will it be before we see that improvement.

At the start of the season our team was showing the togetherness and determination we had come to expect from MM teams but there was also evidence that determination alone was not going to get us where we wanted to be. Questions started to be asked about how good a summer had we had in the transfer market as it was becoming clear there were serious shortcomings in the squad. Then VT stepped in with the bonus debacle swiftly followed by the sacking of Moody and finally the undermining and eventual sacking of MM. All of this, in my opinion, has served only to undermine confidence throughout the club, players and fans.

Blame is probably too strong a word but VT,MM and IM have all had a part to play in where we find ourselves today and sadly OGS has been left to pick up the pieces.

Sadly unless there is a massive improvement, and quickly, then I think we will struggle to win more than 30- 33 points and that will simply not be enough to see us maintain our PL status.

Great post, one thing that worries me is the amount of our fans that say we have the teams at home which we can beat to stay up, and of course they are right, but because we are not picking up many points away from home (especially earlier on in the season when on paper they looked a lot easier) the pressure to now win at home is mounting, all home games are just about becoming "must win" situations and that's what worries me.

I agree so much damage was done earlier in the season with our "Mentality" in away games and, in my opinion, it leaves only West Brom and Sunderland away offering any hope of picking up points. This leaves getting results in our home fixtures an absolute must but can anyone seriously see us getting anything off Liverpool or Chelsea

Villa, Hull, Fulham, Palace and Stoke at home are now absolutely massive games for us.

Agree with every bit of that.

Excellent post CB.

Glad to see one of the more sensible posters on here back me up over my stance about Tan butting in when he did.

Since then we have been a club waiting to implode. I just feel that happened yesterday but a majority of us are in denial.

Slowly the reality is going to hit more of us over these next few games. I just cannot see us winning any of these up and coming games and by then it will be too late. The best we can hope for is a semi recovery come the end of the season that will be far too late.

I was hopeful we would win yesterday but on reflection, I agree with every word of your post and it doesn't surprise me we lost. I've always said as soon as Malky got sacked, we would get relegated. It wouldn't have been pretty under Malky, but we were never in the relegation zone under him and he knew how to grind out results when it mattered. I'm certain we wouldn't have rolled over the way we did yesterday if we still had Malky as manager. But the majority of this forum cried out for more exciting football and now they're getting it, resulting in us shipping goals and throwing away valuable points. I don't see how they can complain.

I have been asking myself this question since the end of the match yesterday evening and having had time to reflect the answer is,NO.

Having watched derby games for 5 decades now there has always been one constant and that is the Jack players are more up for it than ours. That was clear again yesterday from the very first to the last kick of the game and, in my opinion, with the exception of the Ramsey and Bellamy inspired victory 3 years ago, has been the case throughout the last 50 years. Quite why I have never understood but one thing I'm certain about is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the colour of the shirt or the design of the badge on it. In fact over the last 50 years we have won only 3 of 22 league matches in Swansea, and we have only worn red in one of those games and that was yesterday. The reality is Swansea area better team than us with a squad better placed to compete, both home and away, in this division than we are and thoroughly deserved the win yesterday.

So taking the emotive nonsense out of this I believe yesterdays result was completely foreseeable because lets face it we have been in freefall for some months. In fact you only have to look back to 7th December last year, when we lost against Crystal Palace, to understand that this season we have been pretty much easy opponents away from home. Other away performances like Villa are further examples that demonstrate why only Fulham have a worst away record than us.

When you add to the mix our inability to turn the CCS into a fortress then we have the perfect recipe for relegation and, in my opinion, we are at risk of failng to get the win we badly need on Tuesday evening against Villa. Despite the league position, only a few points ahead of the relegation places, Villa currently have the 5th best away defensive record in the PL, and as West Ham and Southampton both have better away defensive records and have both won at CCS the writing is on the wall.

In my opinion OGS has done his best to bring players into the club that could have a positive effect on the team performance but 3 of those players, (Jones, Fabio & Zaha) have played less than 1000 minutes PL gametime this season. Jones has over 800 of those minutes so it shouldn't really surprise us that the other two lack match sharpness and I think that is clearly evident in thier performances so far. Will they improve? almost certainly yes but how long will it be before we see that improvement.

At the start of the season our team was showing the togetherness and determination we had come to expect from MM teams but there was also evidence that determination alone was not going to get us where we wanted to be. Questions started to be asked about how good a summer had we had in the transfer market as it was becoming clear there were serious shortcomings in the squad. Then VT stepped in with the bonus debacle swiftly followed by the sacking of Moody and finally the undermining and eventual sacking of MM. All of this, in my opinion, has served only to undermine confidence throughout the club, players and fans.

Blame is probably too strong a word but VT,MM and IM have all had a part to play in where we find ourselves today and sadly OGS has been left to pick up the pieces.

Sadly unless there is a massive improvement, and quickly, then I think we will struggle to win more than 30- 33 points and that will simply not be enough to see us maintain our PL status.

Great post, one thing that worries me is the amount of our fans that say we have the teams at home which we can beat to stay up, and of course they are right, but because we are not picking up many points away from home (especially earlier on in the season when on paper they looked a lot easier) the pressure to now win at home is mounting, all home games are just about becoming "must win" situations and that's what worries me.

I agree so much damage was done earlier in the season with our "Mentality" in away games and, in my opinion, it leaves only West Brom and Sunderland away offering any hope of picking up points. This leaves getting results in our home fixtures an absolute must but can anyone seriously see us getting anything off Liverpool or Chelsea

Villa, Hull, Fulham, Palace and Stoke at home are now absolutely massive games for us.

I've just come in and noticed that even Fulham got a point at Man Utd today, results wise this weekend couldn't really have gone much worse than it has, all week there were too many city fans on here thinking we only had to turn up yesterday to beat them, i would have taken a point if offered at any stage through the week, even if we were to win five more home games (highly unlikely) that would still leave us four points short of the magic forty points needed (we might get away with 38 points) so with our poor away form where are we going to pick up at least four points from.??????

Excellent post CB.

Glad to see one of the more sensible posters on here back me up over my stance about Tan butting in when he did.

Since then we have been a club waiting to implode. I just feel that happened yesterday but a majority of us are in denial.

Slowly the reality is going to hit more of us over these next few games. I just cannot see us winning any of these up and coming games and by then it will be too late. The best we can hope for is a semi recovery come the end of the season that will be far too late.

Ian whatever our ultimate fate this season there will at some stage be a time to reflect on what went wrong, and things have gone wrong from what was a positive start, and I think the breakdown in the relationship between VT and MM will be seen by many as the reason why we have fallen away so badly this season.

Whatever the right and wrongs of the transfer budget, and lets face it there were a few poor signings, MM was having to deal with an owner who was sending text messages about changing the team whilst the game was in progress. Add to that the bonus debacle, information being leaked to the press by both VT and MM, sacking Moody and replacing him with someone with no football experience and no right to even work in this country and we were sowing the seeds which come harvest time will be our undoing. VT simply cannot escape from his role in all this nonsense.

But there is one question which I hope will eventually get answered. Did Craig Bellamy play any role in undermining MM? Why did he disappear from the team sheet for two months ? I've been told he wasn't injured during that time so why didn't MM pick him.

We all know CB has a history of being something of a wildcard, a player who can become a disruptive influence and since his return to the team he has started having a go at fans.

CB is a strong personality and I would love to know if MM felt he was becoming to big for his boots.

We started off the season with a poor squad.

It seemed our game plan was not to buy journeyman premier league players, but players we could sell on quite easily if we went back down. Medel & Caulker will be off the wage bill and probably almost break even on the pair of them though transfers. Cornelius was a massive rick which is why Vinny boy was livid.

We started with the slowest squad in the league, we were all screaming about it. Odemwingie was a panic buy and we had to swap out one teams under performer for another.

Vinny is not daft, relegation will not hurt him that much when you consider the parachute payments. I believe years as a yoyo club may be ahead. Look at the average age of our squad, when Hudson,Kev & Bellers move on or retire its is young, with a young manager.

Surprised by yesterday, no..... They always beat us and they are better than us.....But its only a game imagine having to live there.

I was hopeful we would win yesterday but on reflection, I agree with every word of your post and it doesn't surprise me we lost. I've always said as soon as Malky got sacked, we would get relegated. It wouldn't have been pretty under Malky, but we were never in the relegation zone under him and he knew how to grind out results when it mattered. I'm certain we wouldn't have rolled over the way we did yesterday if we still had Malky as manager. But the majority of this forum cried out for more exciting football and now they're getting it, resulting in us shipping goals and throwing away valuable points. I don't see how they can complain.

shipping goals! same as with malky dont forget we had second worst goal difference at time of his dimise, so to say things were defensevely ok under malky is totally wrong, stats dont lie unless people are blind!

Excellent post CB.

Glad to see one of the more sensible posters on here back me up over my stance about Tan butting in when he did.

Since then we have been a club waiting to implode. I just feel that happened yesterday but a majority of us are in denial.

Slowly the reality is going to hit more of us over these next few games. I just cannot see us winning any of these up and coming games and by then it will be too late. The best we can hope for is a semi recovery come the end of the season that will be far too late.

Ian whatever our ultimate fate this season there will at some stage be a time to reflect on what went wrong, and things have gone wrong from what was a positive start, and I think the breakdown in the relationship between VT and MM will be seen by many as the reason why we have fallen away so badly this season.

Whatever the right and wrongs of the transfer budget, and lets face it there were a few poor signings, MM was having to deal with an owner who was sending text messages about changing the team whilst the game was in progress. Add to that the bonus debacle, information being leaked to the press by both VT and MM, sacking Moody and replacing him with someone with no football experience and no right to even work in this country and we were sowing the seeds which come harvest time will be our undoing. VT simply cannot escape from his role in all this nonsense.

But there is one question which I hope will eventually get answered. Did Craig Bellamy play any role in undermining MM? Why did he disappear from the team sheet for two months ? I've been told he wasn't injured during that time so why didn't MM pick him.

We all know CB has a history of being something of a wildcard, a player who can become a disruptive influence and since his return to the team he has started having a go at fans.

CB is a strong personality and I would love to know if MM felt he was becoming to big for his boots.

It's interesting but also annoying the Bellamy situation and the way it is developing.

I have lost total respect for and just want him gone now. Something tells me he is heavily involved in our downfall this season.

I was hopeful we would win yesterday but on reflection, I agree with every word of your post and it doesn't surprise me we lost. I've always said as soon as Malky got sacked, we would get relegated. It wouldn't have been pretty under Malky, but we were never in the relegation zone under him and he knew how to grind out results when it mattered. I'm certain we wouldn't have rolled over the way we did yesterday if we still had Malky as manager. But the majority of this forum cried out for more exciting football and now they're getting it, resulting in us shipping goals and throwing away valuable points. I don't see how they can complain.

shipping goals! same as with malky dont forget we had second worst goal difference at time of his dimise, so to say things were defensevely ok under malky is totally wrong, stats dont lie unless people are blind!

We played 9 home games under Malky. 7 of those home games were against teams currently in the top 9 of the Premiership - Man City, Everton, Spurs, Newcastle, Arsenal, Man Utd and Southampton. Our other 2 home games under Malky were Swansea and West Brom and they are the only 2 teams we played at home under Malky who are currently in the bottom half. We won both games 1-0, keeping clean sheets in both. This is what a newly promoted Premiership team needs to do to survive. Malky was doing this and they are factual stats...I think it's yourself who's blind not to see that.