The perception seems to be that we were lucky to win this. I don’t buy it though. Yes we were outplayed in the first half but that can happen. We aren’t going to dominate every team we face and sometimes you need to find other solutions. Swansea are a difficult side to play against on their own patch and they did a bit of a number on us. We contributed to it with the lack of intensity in our play but sometimes you have to just give credit to the opposition. Garry Monk set his team up well and they had us on the back foot in that opening half.
You could say we were lucky to go in level at the break but the reason we didn’t concede was because our goalkeeper did what he’s there to do. Is that luck? It’s not as though Swansea wasted a load of opportunities or were denied by the woodwork or poor officiating, it was just a case of Mignolet making a couple of very good saves. That’s why you have a goalkeeper isn’t it?
The second half was a completely different story and it was our turn to be in the ascendancy. As dominant as Swansea were in the first half, the reverse was true in the second, perhaps even more so as we hogged all the possession, created a few decent chances and never let them anywhere near our goal. You make your own luck and the reason we won this game is simple: Brendan Rodgers.
I knew he’d make an adjustment at half time as that’s what he does. When something isn’t going right, he usually knows what to do to fix it. Disregard the first four months of the season when basically everything had gone to shit and nothing he did was making a difference. There are all manner of reasons for that and they’re well documented.
Generally though, if something isn’t working during a game he’s shown that he’ll change the shape of the team or the personnel within it to address the issue. Swansea had done their homework and figured out a way to shut down our system, and some managers in that situation would have just persisted with that system and hoped things got better. They’d probably have thrown some cups and demanded more effort from the players, and then sent on a striker if it didn’t get any better. Not Brendan though.
He just changed the set up of his midfield to match what Swansea were doing. We’ve got better players than them so if you remove the tactical advantage they had, then… you get what happened in the second half.
It didn’t take a genius to see it needed changing of course, hell, even I put on twitter we should go like for like and switch to a diamond. I’d have brought Gerrard on and just gone to last season’s system. Rodgers went one better. He switched to the diamond but he still kept the back three and pushed the sidemen right up the pitch so we could press the ball better. It worked like a charm.
The game completely turned on it’s head after the break. In the first half we didn’t press the ball and we didn’t pass it well either. We were ok knocking it around in midfield but as soon as we tried to go forward it all broke down. Sterling and Sturridge were back to “Besiktas mode” while Coutinho and Lallana fared little better. Then there was Moreno, I don’t even know what the hell he was doing, he was terrible all night.
What made it even worse was how shaky Emre Can was looking. He was getting beaten like a drum throughout the opening 45 minutes. Shit, he even managed to make Gomis look like a competent footballer, and that takes some doing.
Thankfully Skrtel and Sakho were both on their game and Mignolet was on top form too. For some reason Swansea fans decided they were going to mock Sakho every time he had possession. I assume it was due to a couple of unconvincing clearances early on. They weren’t doing it for long though, as he went 90% pass completion and clean sheet all over their ignorant arses.
Mignolet made excellent stops to keep out Gomis and Sigurdsson while we also did a good job with some scrambling defending. That’s something we’ve improved on massively. Remember earlier in the season when it felt like any time a team got in behind us and players were dragged out of position it cost us a goal? The Man City game at the Etihad was the perfect example of it.
Now it’s completely different. We still get stretched and have some uncomfortable situations to deal with, but now it usually ends with someone making a block or a clearance, or doing enough to prevent a clear cut opportunity. That as much as anything has helped with all these clean sheets away from home.
It’s a good job we’ve discovered how to defend because we’re not pulling up too many trees at the other end. I can’t say I’m too concerned about that at the moment because I assume it’s only a matter of time before it clicks again. It’s going to need Sturridge to massively up his game though as he’s not looking like himself at all right now.
I thought he was a bit more like his old self in the second half and showed some moments of quality. It was from his little flick that Henderson ran through to score the winner, while he also played Sterling in behind the defence on a couple of occasions and was desperately unlucky to see an impudent effort hit the post in stoppage time. I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be at full throttle on Sunday when the Mancs come to town.
Of course the goal was somewhat fortunate, but if you don’t buy a ticket you don’t win the raffle. Hendo made the run in behind and he got his reward. He could have pulled out of the challenge too but he didn’t, and was rewarded when the ricochet looped over the keeper and in. Similar to the ‘lucky’ goal Lallana scored against Swansea at Anfield. Poor Garry Monk must be sick of the sight of us.
How about Joe Allen again though? In the first half when virtually everyone was crap, he rose above it and played quite well. In the second half when the team performed better, he was still a level above most (Skrtel being the one exception). Some of his footwork was Coutinho-esque (although he also did a passable impression of Jon Walters at one point when he kicked the ball into his own face!) and he was popping up all over the pitch. His work rate was incredible, he was like an annoying little wasp buzzing around the Swansea players and in the end he got to them that much that Shelvey took a swing at him. In predictable Jonjo style, he missed. So he tried again, and missed again.
It was snide though. I mean what kind of man takes a swing at Joe Allen? He’s an inoffensive lad who plays the game as fairly as anybody out there. I find it genuinely mystifying how someone could do what Shelvey tried to do. That’s Jonjo though, he’s thick as shit. It’s why he doesn’t play for us anymore. He obviously hasn’t come to terms with that either, that’s probably why he lost it with Allen. He definitely looks at Allen and Henderson and thinks he’s better than them and probably doesn’t understand why they’re still here and he isn’t. Part of the reason is that neither of them pull the kind of shit he tried to do here, or what he did do to Emre Can at Anfield.
Shelvey was probably Swansea’s best player on the night too. He played well, but the more frustrated he got the more he started acting like a knob. Textbook Shelvey. He was even running his mouth at Raheem at the end too, after he and Sturridge had wasted about two minutes of stoppage time by keeping the ball in the corner. Didn’t he have a thing with Lucas last season too? I get the feeling a few of our players probably think he’s a massive gobshite.
Sterling was massively improved in the second half and benefitted as much as anyone from the change in system. He was too deep in the first half and often had no support. After the change he was getting the ball much higher up the pitch and seemed to have more players around him to link up with. Lallana was better too, although his effectiveness was more about work rate and being a nuisance than showing his quality on the ball.
That’s fine though as it was a night when we needed to dig in and it’s a good sign that we are capable of doing that now. When Gerrard was brought on at the base of the diamond Lallana went to the left wing. It was a lot like the old Ajax system from when they were in their heyday. Three at the back, midfield diamond and then two widemen with a central striker.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we see it again, especially if teams follow the Swansea model of trying to nullify us. And if they shut that down, no doubt Brendan will come up with something else. That’s what he does and he probably doesn’t get enough credit for it. Who else makes these kind of in game adjustments, or comes up with tactics never used on these shores before?
I keep hearing all this bullshit about how tactically astute Mourinho is, but there’s just no foundation to it at all. He plays the same fucking system every game and the only tactical changes he makes are based on how negative he wants to play or how much cheating he wants his side to partake in. I don’t see any other manager out there who does what Brendan does.
It’s just such a pity it’s taken so long to get it right this season because we’re only ten points off the top. Imagine that? It wasn’t so long ago it was looking like we’d finish 30 points back at least, but since the turn of the year we’re picking up more points than anyone. If we keep this up we’ll probably end up quite close to the top, which will be infuriating really.
The first priority is to catch the Mancs in 4th spot. We can do that this Sunday by beating them at Anfield. After that we should be looking to overhaul Arsenal in 3rd. We play them in a couple of weeks and victory there would put us level on points. Given the way City look to be imploding, our game at Arsenal may go a long way towards deciding second place. Who'd have thunk it, eh?
Team: Mignolet; Can, Skrtel, Sakho; Sterling, Henderson, Allen, Moreno (Gerrard); Lallana (Johnson), Coutinho; Sturridge:
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