Swansea City, once the darlings of the English Premier League, playing with a swagger and class normally associated with the shores of Spain, where an example of everything an English Premier League needed to be.
They were well run, made smart decisions, lived within their means when spending in the transfer market and looked for players which suited the passing system rather than names which would bring the crowds through the doors of Liberty Stadium.
And for a while they made every post a winner, firstly defying the critics to avoid relegation and then winning their first major trophy with League Cup success under manager Michael Laudrup. The Europa League followed just months later.
All the while the club managed to stay around the top half of the table with one of the lowest budgets in the EPL.
Huw Jenkins and the board seemed to have the midas touch when it came to transfers. Michu was a raging success story, bought for £2 million, before going on to bang over 20 EPL goals, while Jonathan de Guzman, in his two-year loan spell, proved to be masterstroke in the midfield.
Michel Vorm was criticised for being too short as a goalkeeper before being arguably in the conversation as one of the league’s best keepers, and who could forget the Gylfi Sigurdsson loan spell back in their debut season.
The decision to sack Laudrup proved to be the correct one, with Garry Monk managing to drag Swansea away from potential relegation in 2013-14. He then led a barnstorming run last season which saw a double over both Manchester United and Arsenal as Swansea claimed a top-10 finish and their highest ever points total.
The plaudits rightly came for Monk’s men, citing a newfound unity within the squad and a return to the tiki-taka football which is synonymous with the Swansea identity.
Losing Wilfred Bony, Swansea’s top scorer, seemingly made the club even better with Bafetimbi Gomis stepping out of Bony’s shadow to become a terrific leading man. Some viewers of the EPL even claimed Swansea may be destined for Europa League honours this season.
So I find it almost disturbing, as a fan of the club and as a writer, to see Swansea mired towards the bottom of the league, potentially facing the relegation fears they so desperately escaped only two seasons ago.
Admittedly, the Swans are five points clear of Bournemouth and therefore two games clear of the relegation zone, yet the statistics show a far more concerning picture which will surely alarm Monk.
• One win in nine games
• Twelve points in 13 games (the lowest return at this stage since Swansea’s debut season)
• Only twelve goals scored
• Only two clean sheets
It all started well, Swansea went unbeaten during their first four games, featuring a draw against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and a win against Manchester United at Old Trafford.
It saw Garry Monk nominated and awarded manager of the month amid calls for him to be appointed as the next England manager. Gomis and new signing Andre Ayew proved to be a formidable partnership seemingly scoring goals for fun, and the Jacks were on top of the world.
But now Swansea are approaching a relegation scrap. So where did it all go wrong?
What happened to the unity of the Swans, the passing football which gloriously laid waste to so many of England’s best teams?
Well, from the outside looking in the team’s cohesion is dismal and the passing football is gone. While the passing occurs in the back half, once Swansea take the ball past halfway, the gameplan seems to go route one to Gomis, a striker who is now out of form and out of touch.
As well as being boring and predictable, it wastes Swansea’s best assets in their passing midfielders in Ki Sung-yueng, Sigurdsson, Leon Britton and Jonjo Shelvey.
One of Swansea’s best weapons in Jefferson Montero has also become predictable. His plan is, on the face of it, to get the ball and run at the defender, stop, flick the ball past the defender and hope to high heaven that he’s fast enough to get onto the ball and past the defender. Then repeat.
Now all the fullbacks in the Premier League have clued in to this sequence before waiting for Montero to tire and require substitution. In pre-season the loss of Nathan Dyer seemed minimal but how Swansea could use him off the bench now.
Let’s not even mention the defence, which at times has been so wide a Boeing 747 could enter through with ease. That too has been atrocious and lamentable.
An additional note should be made of Swansea’s inability to accept the form slump. After the Norwich loss, Garry Monk pointed to a lapse in concentration as a reason for the loss.
Granted the Swans dominated possession, but for all the domination Norwich created the better chances and for all their effort, took the chances needed to win.
Similar stories can be cited from Stoke City to Watford and to a lesser extent, the first half against Arsenal. Each time Swansea made chances or dominated possession before failing to score and watching as the opposition went forth to claim all three points.
This inability to publicly realise the lack of finishing, defensive substance or the existence of a slump within the team, paints Monk as slightly delusional.
With Bournemouth this week, Swansea need to desperately re-find the goalscoring form and cohesion which brought them to a record point-scoring season. If not, we know Swansea’s board is able to make the hard calls in order to secure Premier League safety for another year.
Given the TV rights deal is set to come in next year, which will swell the coffers of the club tenfold and allow them to go push further up the table, Monk’s position could be in danger.
Monk is a likeable guy, but he needs to show every bit of his managerial talent to turn around this thoroughly disappointing season and make Swansea one of the EPL’s success story again.
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