6 Things We Learned From The Manchester City Game

Come On You Swans.com looks at what we learned from the recent defeat against Manchester City.

1. Bony does have star quality

Much has been said about the record signing from Vitesse, with some fans questioning his ability and the decision to pay £12m for him. Despite a slow start to the season for the 24 year-old, his goalscoring record is still impressive and against Manchester City – who possess some of the best defenders in Europe at least, he scored 2 goals and proved to be quite a handful thanks to his movement, strength and of course – finishing. His third goal was simply stunning, thrashing a low drive into the bottom corner with consummate ease.

2. Defensively, we`re not as good as last season

Ok, so it was against the multi-million pounds of star quality that is Manchester City, but again we looked vulnerable and shaky in defence and even as Laudrup admitted afterwards, we made some basic errors that didn`t help our cause and in the end, it proved to be the difference as at half time – maintaining a draw didn`t look out of our reach by any means.

3. We can “mix it” with the best teams in the League

So far we`ve only managed to get 1 point from playing the top 8 teams in the League, and unlike previous seasons where we`ve given the likes of Manchester United, Spurs and Arsenal a really good game, this year they`ve been few and far between, with Michael Laudrup concentrating on picking up points against the teams around or below us in the table. Any point is a bonus against teams like Manchester City but why should we go into those games with that attitude? In fairness, Laudrup that in any 1 given game, we can get a result, and we almost did today, thanks to a much improved performance where we got our main striker involved in the game. We lost, narrowly, but we should take confidence from the performance.

4. We still need wingers

Not necessarily because our current available wingers aren`t good enough, but because Pablo Hernandez is now injured, but hopefully for no longer than a couple of weeks. Roland Lamah and Wayne Routledge had decent games but they`re not quite up to the standard as Nathan Dyer and with him out for a number of weeks, Laudrup may well look to bring in a winger in this month`s transfer window.

5. Our corners are still poor

Up until now our corners from de Guzman, and even Shelvey, couldn`t even get past the first defender, but today against Manchester City it was the opposite. de Guzman was firing crosses over everyone and the likes of Wilfried Bony and Ashley Williams – who are more than capable of winning the aerial ball – have no chance of causing a threat with deliveries like this. I lost count at how many corners we won at Aston Villa, but we didn`t really look like scoring from them.

6. You should never leave a game before the full time whistle

I`ve never understood this – why fans would leave a game so early before the full time whistle. Some left after only 82/83 minutes as if they had no confidence in the team getting back into the game. They missed Bony`s superb late strike – it meant nothing – but it was still worth staying until the end to watch that strike fly past Joe Hart and into the corner of the net.