Clement Wants His Team To Be More Compact After Hull Loss

Paul Clement has spoken out about the need for his team to be better defensively and more compact following the defeat at Hull City last weekend.

Having come in and helped make the defence more compact and solid with the help of his assistants – particularly Nigel Gibbs – the Swans went back to their old ways at Hull last Saturday, being cut open twice in the second half as the Tigers won 2-1. A late consolation from Mawson was far too little too late.

The first goal was a quick counter attack move from the hosts after we lost possession deep in Hull’s half. A player runs out having won it, passes just inside our half, where Fernandez comes rushing out of position to try and win the ball due to a lack of midfield cover there.

He doesn’t, the ball is played forward quickly again and there’s now a huge gap in behind.

You can see the build-up below…notice how we have four players on the flank. Fernandez is near the Hull player playing the ball forward, operating where Cork should be to protect the back four, instead he’s in a wide left position. Mawson and Olsson meanwhile are almost holding hands in a similar position.



The second goal was a similar sort of problem, another huge gap left through the middle, Mawson again is too wide, but the skipper Cork is pointing for him to mark out wide, and he doesn’t track the goalscorer who runs straight through the middle to score.



These really were goals that you’d have expected us to stop considering how much we’ve improved under Paul Clement. I’m sure he’d have re-watched the game a few times and will have drilled into the players what they need to do to avoid it happening again at Bournemouth, because we all know what they’re capable of against us.


Clement said:

“We know we have to improve defensively. We created chances to win the game but were not as clinical as we had been, but we were too open defensively,”

“It was not just the two goals but the spaces between our players were too big, we were not as compact as we have been and we have to put that right.

“We were in good control of the game, and had the best chance. The injuries did hurt us. Key players have come off and you cannot make any more changes.

“We pushed at the end but it was too late.

“But there is no need to panic. We have done really well over the last eight to nine weeks and we don`t need to panic if we can get back to our level of performance.

“I did not see a complacency in the players either, they are focused. We just did not deliver as planned.

“But last week has gone now, there is nothing we can do about that result and performance. We can only work and look forward to the next game.

“The players are not anxious, they know what they have done in the past weeks. We have picked up 15 points from nine games since the turn of the year and if we do that again we will be fine.”