Stoke City manager Nathan Jones said this week that Swansea City haven’t performed to the level they did against them on Tuesday “all season” as he responds to a question about how long it will take for his side to emulate the level of performance shown by Potter’s side in that 3-1 win.
The Swans swept Stoke aside on Tuesday night. They went down to nine men in the second half but even in the first when it was 11 vs 11, we dominated with more than 70% possession, had 16 shots at goal, scoring twice.
When asked about how long it would take to reach that level of performance, Nathan Jones responded:
“We start that way in terms of the new season.”
“We are implementing things now but it takes time. Swansea haven’t been that good all season. They’ve been good lately because one, they’ve hit a bit of form and two, they’ve had 10 months working at certain things.”
But Jones insisted that he wasn’t interested in his team playing the same style as Swansea, adding:
“Ten months into my tenure I hope we’re in a wonderful place, playing wonderful football.”
“I don’t want to play the same style of football as Swansea, I want to play high-tempo, attacking football where we press and work hard. We’ve done that recently but obviously we want to get even better and more fluent and have more cutting edge.”
“We’re on the right path. They were very good in the first half last week, they really were, and it was a frustrating night for us on Tuesday when we didn’t quite execute the game plan. That’s a work in progress again.”
I have to say, and having read comments on Stoke City’s forum from their own fans, they seem to share the opinion that Stoke were very poor on Tuesday. They looked like a side with too many Premier League prima donnas who didn’t look too interested in competing in a lower league. Their high press was non existent as well as their tempo and with eleven men, they only created two chances, one of which was the goal, scored from 25-30 yards out.
