Flatcap Canary 0 Posted January 21, 2013 The Glamour and the CatchFrom the moment Paul Lambert''s magic came to the boil to the animosity of his departure to Aston Villa, I''m sure we''re all in agreement that we stormed up the leagues in the face of adversity playing exciting, almost gung-ho attacking football. There is nobody who would say that they weren''t entertained by Lambert''s bravery and vigour in management style. Now, I''m not going to go on to moan about Negative Hughton because I don''t view him or his tactics in that way whatsoever (I''m sure that will instantly lead to some/most of you shaking your heads, labelling us one dimensional and pseudo-comatose)Get real.I''m going to cast an admiring glance across the country to Swansea, who under Laudrup have reached giddier heights than we are currently able to and leaving us desperately wishing for Hughton to go 4-2-4 in the last ten minutes, equalise and bag a 90+5 minute winner a la the heady days of PL. Instead we defend, we contain, and we counter. And we get spanked 5-0 by Liverpool.Yes, that was bad. But we will bounce back.You see Swansea City have had the solid years of Championship consolidation under Roberto Martinez, who is a Very Clever manager (anyone who can get Wigan playing attractive football and keep them in the Prem playing 3 at the back has to be Very Clever). Brendan Rodgers took the plaudits for basically continuing the work of Martinez and further drilling that patient passing game he had them playing into his players. Meanwhile on the back of the Lambert momentum we stormed into the Premier League like an enigma, taking apart all comers and leaving Leeds and the pitiful Scum crying in our wake.I think that now those years of building a solid foundation at Swansea are starting to show. Laudrup has added Michu and the ''outlet ball'' to their game, so they can now take a more direct approach when needed. They have a squad with decent depth immersed in the mentality of continuity throughout those years, and they''re ready to push on.In my opinion, I will happily take 17th for two or three more years while we get that foundation firmly in place. Those expecting us to bag Hooper and Graham and immediately ''push on'' are forgetting how quickly we got here and how...maybe, just maybe, it''s starting to show.Chris Hughton will turn us into Premier League stalwarts, though it may not be pretty- and when we are as complete a project as Swansea are looking, then we can turn on the style and take the game to the top half of the Prem as we did under Lambert. (but with a defence)We''ve had the glamour, now here''s the catch. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NR1 0 Posted January 21, 2013 Were we not 3-0 up at half time against the very same Swansea? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Baldyboy 0 Posted January 21, 2013 but we didnt contain or counter at Liverpool did we? Even at 3 down no extra striker was brought on, Hughton is one dimensional and always will be! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stig 0 Posted January 21, 2013 And then NR1 shows the other side to the double edged sword. I think at the base of it we''ve been treated to three years of pure success and now we''ve leveled off and have to take the challenge with the success. We''re an interesting club, because I don''t think anyone knows whether we are over performing or doing just right or even under performing. We''ll know how we''ve performed at the end of the season and whether that was on par with what we thought. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
York Canary 28 Posted January 21, 2013 Another striker would have done little as we couldn''t string 2 passes together and our defence was nervous without Bassong. Unless we played hoofball Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Flatcap Canary 0 Posted January 21, 2013 [quote user="NR1"]Were we not 3-0 up at half time against the very same Swansea?[/quote] We beat United and Arsenal. Are we better than them too? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites