In his post-match e-mail from the home game versus Swansea City, Martin O’Neill tells it likes it is (or was on the night). He’s right about one thing, where the onus lies, so why were we defending like the clappers in injury time?
Dear Colin,
I was disappointed with the performance.
We’ve got a point on the board and that’s probably all that we deserved, I’m not sure that Swansea deserved anything more either.
However, we were the home side and the onus was on us to try and break the team down and I don’t think we did that for long enough periods in the game.
Neither side deserved the win. Swansea had the better possession in the first half and I thought we improved early in the second half. We started to apply pressure but just couldn’t sustain it.
Swansea got back in and got a foothold of the game. Titus Bramble did very well to deny them late in the game and had that goal went in it might have been a little harsh, but ultimately it’s up to us to do better.
Swansea are becoming more established in the league and have added quality players to their side. We’ve had two tough games against them this season.
Their confidence was high following their Capital One Cup victory but then again so was ours on the back of a couple of great wins.
We struggled this evening and that was really disappointing. I’m expecting a much improved performance against Reading on Saturday.
All the best,
Martin O’Neill
The most worrying thing for me is the sudden change in tactics and formation. Why has MON suddenly taken to playing Larsson behind Fletcher and Sess out wide? He did it against Wigan and we struggled for large portions of the game, it was repeated in several different phases of play last night and was nearly our undoing.
Sess played on the right, the left and in the middle; Larsson played behind Fletcher, Central midfield and out wide. Is MON trying to find a formation N’Diaye fits into? Whatever the reason it unbalanced the team and confused the defensive shape, with gaps appearing everywhere. The midfield and defence constantly got pulled out of shape as players tried to cover for Sess, who is great to watch in the opposition half, but hasn’t got a clue how to track or defend.
What MON brought to the club last season was a very clear system of play that allowed fairly limited players to have a sense of purpose and play beyond themselves as a result. If we lose, that many of our squad haven’t the quality to interchange and create individual space or moments of brilliance, and consequently we look pedestrian and slow. I’m a little worried.
A terrible game between two team who looked extremely tired, I can understand Swansea being less than fresh but what is our excuse. Hope its not like last season when once we considered ourselves safe we threw in the towel. We are better than that