It’s too early to start looking at the Premier League table, and it’s too early to start making informed predictions about the season.
But the early season form is showing good signs for Swansea, and it doesn’t seem a stretch to start talking about them as a team who can go far this season.
After steady growth in the last two seasons, Garry Monk has his team set up the way he wants it. The summer so far has been notable for some good business from the Swans, and what’s more is they got it done early. And it shows. The Swans are playing like a team, rather than like a group of strangers. They’ve all had a pre-season under their belts together and the fact the new signings are playing so well is probably down to how well they’ve bedded in.
And they look like a team having some fun and enjoying themselves on the football pitch. It’s great to see players enjoying it, and when form and morale are high, results will surely follow. But more importantly, good football follows. Swansea fans are in for a real treat this season.
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But it’s not always going to be sweetness and light at the Liberty this season. Obviously there’ll be a blip and some sort of a slump. It’s only natural. It remains to be seen how well they can cope, but for the moment things look on the right track.
But there was a warning sign last weekend at Sunderland.
A draw isn’t a terrible result, and Monk’s men played really well. At this stage of the season, that’s probably what you want. Results are important in football, especially these days when staying in touch with the teams around you is vital, and Swansea are doing well in that regard too. They’ve played well and are unbeaten. All well and good.
And another good sign was the sight of smiles on the faces of the players throughout the game, even when missing chances – of Swansea’s 20 shots, not all of them were close, but quite a few were flowing, elegant moves that just lacked a finish, or missed by a hair. You can see why Ayew and Montero would share a smile and an, ‘ooh, close!’ after a near miss from a sumptuous move.
So the worry clearly isn’t that Swansea aren’t playing well – they are – the worry is more about the lack of ruthlessness in the team.
If you look at the stats from last weekend, Swansea had double the chances and almost double the possession that Sunderland had. Yet all the talk after the game was on how much improved Sunderland were even though had Swansea taken any one of their chances at 1-0 up, they’d have won the game comfortably.
Now, that’s not a criticism. We all love to see beautiful football. Personally, I’d prefer to see a beautiful miss than an alright goal. But although Swansea fans must be very happy with how their team is progressing, although they must be delighted to see the beautiful misses, they must also be wondering why they didn’t see beautiful goals at the Stadium of Light instead.
The results and the goals will come for Swansea, of course. One game doesn’t mean very much, especially at the start of the season when performances count more than results. It’s more important to see what the team is like than to see them win: that way you know what you need to work on. But in that spirit, it’s right to point out a potential lack of ruthlessness in the Swansea attack.
Swansea have the potential to go far this season, but if they don’t take their chances when they’re presented, then they might not get there. At some point, the hard reality of Premier League points takes precedent over beautiful moves. Unless you can finish off the beautiful moves. Swansea need to be more ruthless.
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