For the first time this season, Swansea City boss Graham Potter has received a fair amount of blame from fans for today’s narrow 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa.
Many supporters on social media have said that the manager got it wrong today with his starting line-up and the choice to adopt a 3-4-3 formation and that he needs to try and settle now on his strongest team and system.
Potter has made changes to his line-ups in pretty much every game with as many as 7 in a single match as he appears to focus on what best suits the opposition. Even players who are playing well aren’t guaranteed to keep their place as the likes of Erwin Mulder and Dan James have found themselves back on the subs bench despite some recent good performances.
After using a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, standard 4-4-2 and a 4-2-2-2, Potter switched things up yet again today by adopting a back three and giving Cian Harries his debut alongside van der Hoorn and Rodon.
Potter explained his reasons for this after the game and said:
“The thinking was to try and have width through Connor Roberts and Martin Olsson and to try and play 4 v 3 in midfield and not use Oli McBurnie through the middle.
“When the result does not go, it does not work and that is the life of a football coach.
“We went back (to four at the back) during the first half with Cian Harries at left-back and Martin pushed on.
“Also Tom Carroll has only had two days of training so I did not want to rush him in today because it affects one or two things.
“I thought Cian did well actually, but it’s a learning process. It’s the same for me and I haven’t got all the answers. It would be a lot easier if I did!”
That comment is an interesting one from Potter, almost as if he’s defending himself by saying that he cannot get it right every game. What manager does?
