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Matchday Thread Swansea City v PNE | 24.02.26 | KO:7:45 PM | Championship

Matchday Thread Swansea City v PNE | 24.02.26 | KO:7:45 PM | Championship

I’m feeling more glass half full today. I enjoyed the first half performance especially the way Lang, Dobbin and Jebbison combined up front and caused their defence all sorts of problems. Big improvement over plastics game.

We were 20 seconds away from beating a team with one of the best home records in the league.

The difference was they were able to bring on game changing subs at half time whereas we were able to bring on the likes of Smith and Lindsay. Also, we’re crying out for a Gilbraith type playmaker in the middle of the park.
 
I'm trying to think - when was the last time we caused an opposing team to basically camp in their own half, unable to get out and having to resort to kick-it-anywhere clearances, which immediately come back on them? It happens to us with depressing regularity but even relegation-threatened League 1 Wigan weren't exactly hanging on by their fingertips.

I have no coaching badges but even I can see that something is clearly not right. Is it tactical? Are the players simply not good enough? I don't know, but things need to change quickly or next season (probably minus at least 2 of our better players), could be horrendous.
 
monky1234 said:
Could've possibly put Potts on instead of Lindsay for Pol. But outside of that, I thought the changes were right based on how the game was going.
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Brings the "calamity trio" together for the last quarter.. and we concede a goal due to a player not being picked up... and not for the first time. Tactically.. if he gets anymore defensive he'll have all the players standing on our goal line.
 
sliper said:
Brings the "calamity trio" together for the last quarter.. and we concede a goal due to a player not being picked up... and not for the first time. Tactically.. if he gets anymore defensive he'll have all the players standing on our goal line.
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Storey was nothing to do with it and Hughes wasn't at fault either.

Storey coming on and Hughes going to LWB actually helped us. Whether you think it was defensive or not, we ended up having the ball higher up the pitch than we did previously in the half with our less defensive side.
 
monky1234 said:
Storey was nothing to do with it and Hughes wasn't at fault either.

Storey coming on and Hughes going to LWB actually helped us. Whether you think it was defensive or not, we ended up having the ball higher up the pitch than we did previously in the half with our less defensive side.
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And those changes weren't made when the defence got surgically sliced open, only for their lad to fluff the nutmeg on Cornell (who got out very quickly for it!)
 
Mick M said:
2nd half we didnt have an outlet ball.If Small had been on the bench when he plays he gets the ball and bombs up the putch thus relieving pressure but due to the managers selections for the bench ?
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Exactly my point.

Vuk did this several times in the first half.

They couldn't cope with him.

Obviously, things changed in the second half, but ultimately if your hold-up Striker isn't holding it up, having pace on the wings at least allows an outlet.

Potts, for example, has an engine on him (despite limited ability) and might've also done a job.

At this point (i.e. losing back-to-back games at the death), it's a legitimate concern to question why we revert to total defence when we seemingly can't defend.

Note: appreciate if their keeper hadn't pulled a worldie off the back of Magic's shot, we'd all be very feeling very different this morning.
 
sliper said:
The defence had been put under a lot of pressure in the second half but they looked they knew their job and were well organised. "If it ain't broke don't fix it". What was needed was a player who could relieve some of that pressure. So the manager decides to introduce the defenders who almost got us relegated last season and suddenly nobody knows what they are supposed to be doing anymore. Defence looks wobbly and concedes late in the game. We've seen this rather a lot recently. It has been patently obvious for months (if not years) to everyone except the manager that the "Lindsay, Storey, Hughes" partnership simply doesn't work.

Remind me again... what's the definition of madness ?
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By putting on two strikers (at a time when we were winning, btw, so negative…),that it exactly what we did - alleviate pressure.

Bringing on Storey and Lindsay didn’t make us look more wobbly at all (and I don’t rate either of them). It also didn’t make us any worse going forward. It’s as simple as we didn’t defend a simple cross into the box when it mattered most.

If we defended that one cross better, this entire forum would’ve been saying what a magnificent away performance it was. One action shouldn’t cloud our judgement of how the game went and what actually happened.
 
nomorebigideas said:
Exactly my point.

Vuk did this several times in the first half.

They couldn't cope with him.

Obviously, things changed in the second half, but ultimately if your hold-up Striker isn't holding it up, having pace on the wings at least allows an outlet.

Potts, for example, has an engine on him (despite limited ability) and might've also done a job.

At this point (i.e. losing back-to-back games at the death), it's a legitimate concern to question why we revert to total defence when we seemingly can't defend.

Note: appreciate if their keeper hadn't pulled a worldie off the back of Magic's shot, we'd all be very feeling very different this morning.
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Granted if Osmajic had scored then we’d be happy with a win. However the second half performance was again abject at best and is a constant trend as to what’s happened across the season.

Is it a case of if we are at 0-0 or 1-0 up we sit in and hope to run for the hills with a result or try to get a goal on the counter.. Either way it’s not good enough and the second half performances need addressing as we cannot sit in and try to see games out. We need to try and push on for the second as inviting pressure only ends one way.
 
ChuckD said:
whereas we were able to bring on the likes of Smith and Lindsay. Also, we’re crying out for a Gilbraith type playmaker in the middle of the park.
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Hopefully Smith's utterly woeful showing last night will make PH reticent about even having him on the bench - I daresay Smith is a decent individual I just can't see that he brings anything at all to the team. We would have been better off last night trying to use Osmajic as a lone striker and have put another body into the midfield to try to shut them down more effectively and maybe give us a bit more creativity - the obvious player for that would be Moran or maybe Brady because if he was fit enough to be on the bench surely he was fit enough to play the final 20 minutes. Similarly if Potts was fit enough to be on the bench then again he should have replaced Valentin which would have left Offiah in the position where he is most effective. But as you say we came within seconds of what would have been a tremendous win but no match is over until the referee blows the whistle. We move on.
 
Mr.T said:
Granted if Osmajic had scored then we’d be happy with a win. However the second half performance was again abject at best and is a constant trend as to what’s happened across the season.

Is it a case of if we are at 0-0 or 1-0 up we sit in and hope to run for the hills with a result or try to get a goal on the counter.. Either way it’s not good enough and the second half performances need addressing as we cannot sit in and try to see games out. We need to try and push on for the second as inviting pressure only ends one way.
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We were pushing on for the second, which is why in the first half we should've been up by more than one goal.

Swansea's changes at half time then changed how the game was going. We were trying to play in the same way as the first half, pressing their back four with our front three, but they were able to get the ball from the defence into midfield a lot easier because of their changes, and then pressed us better meaning we struggled to keep the ball.

The right change to make was bringing one of the front three off for a midfielder and giving up that higher press, to try and contain the midfield better.

People mention about ball carriers to relieve the pressure, we had enough of those on the pitch when we were struggling. They weren't effective because we couldn't keep the ball at all. So had to do something completely different. Which it did work compared to how it was going. Just didn't defend a last minute cross into the box.
 
Bobbage said:
I know everyone is piling on Liam Lindsay for not picking up Cullen on the cross, but surely he was brought on to mark the big man in the centre and Lewis Gibson (possibly having forgotten the role switch?) should have been marking the man further wide?

There was definitely confusion in the centre with both players on the same man last night.
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Agree. Easy target.

There was definitely confusion, though.

You can see as the cross comes in that Lindsay is playing the offside trap.

But, as he steps up, the others track back and attempt to go man-for-man.

This takes Lindsay out of the game.

The question is, what were the instructions? Offside or man-for-man?

I know we used to play offside.
 
jumping mouse said:
Agree. Easy target.

There was definitely confusion, though.

You can see as the cross comes in that Lindsay is playing the offside trap.

But, as he steps up, the others track back and attempt to go man-for-man.

This takes Lindsay out of the game.

The question is, what were the instructions? Offside or man-for-man?

I know we used to play offside.
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Certainly not the situation to be trying to play offside there. We had like six players spread across a line.

Maybe got excited because Whiteman had pushed out, as he should do. Hard to know, as can't hear what the players are shouting.
 
ChuckD said:
I’m feeling more glass half full today. I enjoyed the first half performance especially the way Lang, Dobbin and Jebbison combined up front and caused their defence all sorts of problems. Big improvement over plastics game.

We were 20 seconds away from beating a team with one of the best home records in the league.

The difference was they were able to bring on game changing subs at half time whereas we were able to bring on the likes of Smith and Lindsay. Also, we’re crying out for a Gilbraith type playmaker in the middle of the park.
Click to expand...
Genuine question. What role did we buy Moran to do? He doesn't seem to fit in anywhere, even with 5 subs being used. We seem to have aquired 2 players in January that are of no use to us at the present time.
 
Schemer said:
I'm trying to think - when was the last time we caused an opposing team to basically camp in their own half, unable to get out and having to resort to kick-it-anywhere clearances, which immediately come back on them? It happens to us with depressing regularity but even relegation-threatened League 1 Wigan weren't exactly hanging on by their fingertips.

I have no coaching badges but even I can see that something is clearly not right. Is it tactical? Are the players simply not good enough? I don't know, but things need to change quickly or next season (probably minus at least 2 of our better players), could be horrendous.
Click to expand...
In the first half last night. Vuk and Pol had the beating of them for speed on both wings. But just like against Watford they brought on wide players at the break to stop this. We couldn’t adapt, but what a performance from the starting 11. Dobbin on the left Jebbison central and Lang on right with our wide men caused them no end of problems. Uplifting performance imo.
 
monky1234 said:
Certainly not the situation to be trying to play offside there. We had like six players spread across a line.

Maybe got excited because Whiteman had pushed out, as he should do. Hard to know, as can't hear what the players are shouting.
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Either everyone pushes out, or everyone marks up?

It's the half-and-half that caused the problems.

Man markers isolated and overrrun. Pusher outers - half way up the pitch.
 
JK said:
and he pissed off at half time.

Not sure they will ever see him in Swansea again.
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Apparently he was in a suite

Looking at their forum though, seems all he did was sit around smoking weed

Turns out Swansea's stadium is a smoking stadium despite the announcements then

Snoop A Poll

Leaving
jackarmy.net jackarmy.net
 
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