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Reply | LAUDRUP GONE: OFFICIAL
at 01:57 5 Feb 2014
Very sad news Indeed.
From a danish Laudrup fan, here's my viewpoint:
PL:
Swansea will stay up regardless. The team is a lot stronger than than many other PL teams, but have had the lack of luck to meet all the good PL teams from the start, and then recently. If you look at the different sides in the PL, Im sure Swansea has the amount of points it should have on average.
Bad performance for a long time:
A couple of articles have mentioned that Swansea hadnt been playing well since the cup win. Well, if you were Swansea in the spring, Europe League secured, no chance of a Champions League spot, then the only sensible thing to do, is to take it easy, not get injured. Wins did not matter at all. There were literally nothing to play for.
This year however, the team has had Europe League on top of the PL, cups and what not. ML said before summer that this required a lot more quality players because the it will be a lot harder on the players with fewer breaks in between matches. Apparently the board didnt listen, and this year saw Michu injured as well as others.
Bony:
Bony started weakly, but has since picked up. I actually thinks he's an amazing player. Last year he made 31 goals in 30 matches in the Netherlands. This year, so far only 7 in PL. To compare though, thats one more goal than Samuel E'to, Steven Gerrard and Oscar who all scored only 6. And they play on wastly better and more expensive teams. 2 Less than Hazard, Rooney, van Persie. .... Very very good players. very very expensive players. Bony was a great buy, and can be sold of with a solid profit if Swansea is clever.
Reason for the parting:
Its hard to say what the reason for this sacking is. In Denmark stories cirkulated about internal cliques, fights and what not. Thats obviously a problem, and if that reflected in bad performance on the field, then yes, there is a big problem. However, someone else started buying players without letting Laudrup selecting them, and that is simply stupid. Please, oh please, take the managers advice in buying players to fit his playstyle. This goes regardless of the manager btw.
I dont know what the real reason is. Maybe its fear of relegation. In that case I call bullshit. Swansea wont be relegated. No matter who's the coach.
If its a matter of philosophy, well, Laudrups way of doing it worked last year. Some people thinks that when you loose you should work harder. However, sometimes, maybe what you need is a break with your family? In 1992 Denmark won the Euro92 championship by doing just that. The players took days off between matches and went to McDonalds instead of training.
I dont think that ppl saying Swansea played badly has taken the opposition into consideration, nor the amount of injuries.
Finally, it may just have been ML being disparaged by the lack of support from the board. He certainly didnt get the players he wanted this transfer window. Its not hard to predict that players from the championship might be in deep water against Napoli and so on...
The board:
The board and Huw Jenkins has a long history of good, solid longterm decision making. I currently have a hard time to see this as anything else but panic by people with little understanding of football. There is no reason to panic. Especially, the board to should signal the big solid rock. The clear path ahead, regardless of temporary storms. The west ham game means nothing in the big picture. In this they seem to have failed, leaving us to speculate about any other reasons for this parting. Sir Alex Ferguson didn't have a great first season. Morinho doesnt win every game. Sometimes boards should just let things be, not interfere with this or that. ML is not a better or worse coach than he was last year. His performance isnt even worse either. Looking at the amount of points you got against each team played this year compared to last, Im sure will show a similiar amount. Maybe a little less, but unlike last year, Michu hasnt made 10 goals already, and Swansea dont have the money to have 2 Michu copies on the bench.
Monk:
I wish the new coach all the best. I dont think Swansea will be relegated, but I do think that some of the players will not have anywhere near the respect for him as a footballer as they had for ML. Yeah, you can yell. But, can you play? Very few players can play like ML. Still.
Bottom line:
Swansea will go on. But will probably be in the lower part of the PL. I dont think we have the cash to go very much higher. We are already one of the teams that gets the most results from the least amount of money. I believe only Everton gets as more points per mio. pounds. So any talk about bad performance, is only made by nincompoops with no understanding of football, economics or statistics.
Im going to close with a Gary Lineker quite from twitter:
"Swansea have sacked @KP24 . Worse still, they've sacked Michael Laudrup. Absolutely bonkers. World's gone mad!"
Thank you for your time. I wish you all the best. |
| Forum
Reply | Crystal Palace v Swansea City - Matchday Thread
at 15:35 22 Sep 2013
Swansea were so superior today that they saved their strength for another day. 3 points is 3 points, and Palace didnt even had one serious shot on target did they? |
| Forum
Reply | Laudrup
at 14:54 22 Sep 2013
First post, some time lurker :)
Ok, so first of all, I dont think ML is going anywhere because of a big fat check. He has the money he needs to retire already.
2nd, I dont think Swansea will crumble should he leave. The board in Swansea obviously have done a great job of picking good coaches AND staying the course with buying playersto fit into the playstyle they have selected.
Let me elaborate on that a second. I worked as a consultant for a company, where each year, they fired the CEO. The one I worked with was brilliant, knew exactly what she wanted to change. but noone listened. Why, because they knew she would be gone soon. And she was. The 10th CEO in 10 years.
Now look at football clubs. How long time does it take to change replace players, retrain them to change the playstyle to fit the new manager? Usually, 3 years. Thats how long it took Sir Alex Ferguson, one of the best ever. How long time do a coach get? In spain, 3 months. And so you have clubs like Chelsea, Madrid and you know them, that have a new coach each year. And then you have clubs like Arsenal that does very well for their budget, by having an overall strategy. And then you have Swansea, where they think ahead, and select to manager to fit the squad and playstyle.
After Laudrup, I think Swansea will continue to progress. But I dont think Swansea will win neither the PL, nor the CL anytime soon. I think people need to get real here. Ask yourself: When we play Man. United or Chelsea, who in Swanseas squad would the opposing team want to buy? Not really anyone. Rooney is better than michu. Van Persie IS better than Bony and so on. Also most of those players cost 2-10 times as much. Juventus, who never wins anything, have an annual transfer budget of 100m £, which I suppose could buy them all of Swansea FC, stadium included.
I didn't mean to be negative here last. I think ML does a great job. I think he will get Swansea far in EL. Semifinal is my prediction. PL: 6-8. Any cup wins. Probably not. There's some luck involved. :) |
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