Swansea City manager Garry Monk’s substitution decisions came into question on Saturday as his side lost their 5th game in 8
Swansea City manager Garry Monk’s substitution decisions came into question on Saturday as his side lost their 5th game in 8, as Norwich City scored from a corner to take all three points at Carrow Road.
After a disappointing 3-0 defeat against Arsenal last weekend, the next two games against promoted sides Norwich and Bournemouth were seen as an opportunity to get some much needed points on the board to ease our slide down the Premier League table.
However, things didn’t go to plan on Saturday as Swansea City produced yet another disappointing and lacklustre performance that lacked all of the qualities that he wanted to bring to the club after they had been ‘eroded’ by his predecesor Michael Laudrup.
The team seemed happy enough to try and keep the ball for as long as possible, and play out a boring 0-0 draw, lacking ambition and the will to try and win all three points.
Monk may have just blamed a ‘lapse of concentration’ for conceding directly from a corner – AGAIN – but the disappointing and frustrating fact is that his side never ever looking like scoring. Ruddy – in the Norwich goal rarely touched the ball with his hands and didn’t have a single save to make – in fact the only time he did touch the ball with his hands was when he was setting the ball for a goal kick.
8 minutes after his side went a goal down with 20 minutes remaining, Garry Monk made the strange decision to take off an attacking midfielder – Gylfi Sigurdsson – who scored a stunning free kick that helped us complete a come back win at Aston Villa a fortnight ago, and replace him with holding midfielder Leon Britton.
Sigurdsson, who has proven that he can change a game for us recently from a dead ball situation, leaves the pitch with 12 minutes of the game to go, while struggling striker Bafetimbi Gomis is left to play the full 90 minutes, while second choice striker Eder has to wait yet again to make a cameo with a handful of minutes of the game remaining.
Britton did play well when he came on, helped us to keep possession as we all know he does so well, and while it did allow one of Ki and Shelvey to push further forward, it didn’t improve our already-slim chances of netting an equaliser late on in the game.
Wayne Routledge’s arrival on the hour mark, replacing a poor Montero was the only worthy replacement of the game for the Swans. Routledge did create our one chance of the game – as Gylfi Sigurdsson – the player later taken off – somehow managed to loop a shot onto the bar from short range.
The only explanation is if Sigurdsson was suffering with an injury of some sort, but this didn’t look to be the case. And with Gomis being no threat whatsoever again, why not bring on Eder a lot sooner?
I, and many many other fans cannot understand why Eder is only getting a maximum of 5 minutes when coming on as a substitute. I actually feel quite sorry for the Portuguese international striker. What can we expect him to do for 5 minutes per game?! And fans are calling for him to replace Gomis up front, but how can we expect him to suddenly start games when he’s only playing for a few minutes every week!?
Those are our thoughts, what do you think? Do you agree? Post your comments below…
