Until the players and the manager fully understand each others way of doing things (and for that I think we need more players on the managers wave length brought in in January) this is going to be a very tough season for us.
I think it's reality check time for us at the moment...
... It's going to take more than four matches, or four months even. I'd hope to be playing very good football at some point before the end of the season, but it might even take longer than that.
Why so long? Well if the manager was given 100 million quid to go out and buy Alonso, Jovatic, Ben Arfa etc etc it would probably take a lot less time. He hasn't been given anything like that kind of money however...
I've been thinking about 'where we are' (football wise) for quite some while now and, for me, both the above posts are accurate and touch on what I've been thinking; stay with me...
Brendan has stated (more than once) that the team is the star, not the players. I get
exactly what he's saying (something foar touched on) but I don't believe it's wholly true. As such, I believe, we need to fully appreciate it's implications. Think about it... at Swansea Brendan had, by and large, a full compliment of players who knew his system and played it well yet they were still no world beaters.
If indeed all it takes is players who know the system and are on the same wavelength then Swansea would have finished higher (possibly top four). Whilst I know we will see improvement (as things start to click); in order to take this 'style of play' to the 'next level' there just has to be "better" players signed -
not just players who understand a system; in my opinion.
If we think about it (really think about it), until the players we've got get the system; we can't even expect to get where Swansea were last season. And until we sign "better" players surely we can't take that to the 'next level'. It may be argued that we have a better starting point with (perhaps) a better quality squad but it may also be argued that; without the players Brendan wants and needs - we are having to mend and make do.
Our squad is seriously bereft of senior players and whilst I love the notion of promoting youth; how many of our young guns are ready to make the step up? If this (promotion of youth) is to be the defining policy then we must be patient as we'll have no other option. If Brendan can, at last, sign one, two or three of the players he wants/needs, in January it may just give us the fillip we need and buy us some time while the 'youth' come through.
We
will get there but (for so many reasons) it needs to be sooner than later.
On yesterday's game: I saw an awful lot of positives but the sense of deja vu was most prevalent, sadly.
I could have been looking at any amount of last season's games. Without the fourth of the four Ps everything else is irrelevant. We all knew that this time last year; we all knew that last January and we all knew it this Summer... join me in hoping that there'll be "value in the January window" this time 'round.
