Swansea City Buildup: Monk Proud of Swans, Hernandez Rues Missed Chances and Michu is Missing
This isn’t a Jacks blog and I’m not here to expound on the reasons that the Dane’s firing is complete nonsense, but it’s hard to ignore in the build up to their trip to Anfield this weekend as more details emerge from the whole sordid affair. In the meantime, Swans fans will likely be more receptive to discussing the well earned draw they snagged last night in the Europa League against Napoli – a match they’ll feel hard done by to have not won.
“We should have had more, but what a performance from us. They are one of the top teams in Europe,” said interim player-manager Garry Monk. “The only disappointment is we didn’t get a goal. We deserved at least a couple of goals.” Napoli, of course managed by former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez, remain favorites to go through to the last-16 of the Europa League with next week’s encounter in Naples set to be the deciding factor, but the Spaniard, never one to quickly hand out praise, was surprisingly upbeat following the stalemate.
“It is positive to get a draw here. Swansea are fast, they played well and had good chances, but I think defensively my team did a great job against a side that attacked from start to finish” said Rafa, who went on to Monk. “It was a great game and his side did well. If they carry on with similar things, it will give them good confidence and from what I have seen it seems like he has a good future as manager.” He’ll have an even brighter future if he can get his team to finish their chances.
Napoli’s Brazilian goalkeeper Raphael made a number of saves to deny the like of Nathan Dyer, and Angel Rangel, but Ashley Williams and Wilifried Bony both missed glorious chances to break the deadlock when it may have been easier to score. With eight shots on target to the visitor’s solitary effort, Jack’s winger Pablo Hernandez rued his side’s inability to take advantage of their dominance in the wake of the draw. “I think we deserved to win the game,” the Spaniard said. “We had a lot of chances to score, but that’s football sometimes.”
Despite their inability to claim a home goal, the clean sheet is a major positive going into next weekend’s trip to Italy. “The most important thing was the clean sheet, and the fact that Napoli didn’t score. Next week’s game in Naples is now 50-50 for both teams” he continued. “The team is happy, and I think the fans are as well. We perhaps deserved more but it was a good game for us. We played very well, and produced some great football.” Fellow Spaniard Michu may be able to provide that missing spark when the two sides meet next week for the decider, but this weekend’s trip to Anfield is likely to come too soon for the creative attacker.
Although he’s on the mend, Michu isn’t expected to return for this weekend’s trip to Merseyside. After a breakout season in the Premier League last year, the Spaniard has endured a relatively quiet, injury hit campaign with an ankle injury — and resulting surgery — enforcing his absence since the middle of December. The 27-year old was on the mark in the reverse fixture when the two sides ran out an entertaining 2-2 draw back in the fall, but it doesn’t look like he’ll get the chance to add to his goal tally for the season this weekend – not that we’re complaining or anything.
–Steven
Steven don’t you think you should hear the Swansea board’s version of events before you start using words like sordid and crass. There is no doubt that in some, not all, ways the Swansea board could have handled things better but I can assure you as a Swansea Vice President there are 2 sides to this particular story and I would respectfully ask that you and others do not sit in judgement until you have more information. What is sad is Laudrup is a very good coach and a man of honour, but so are the board of SCFC, they have not sacked a manager in 10 years before and have always managed the club exclusively for the fans and the city. Your manager shit on Swansea, the club which gave him a chance, 3 months after he had signed a new contract, where’s the ethics there?
Despite that I thought you wrote a decent blog.
Derek O’Brien
Manager shit on Swansea? Swansea feared he was going to leave and begged him to stay so that they could make money by selling him to another club. Swansea might be ethical in most respects, but they were not very professional or ethical with Laudrup. The least they could have done is let him leave with dignity.
Laudrup was a man of his word and he stayed with Swansea as he promised. Huw Jenkins had my respect until this point. He has shown himself to be a coward as have the rest of the board members.
That’s silly you saying Liverpool never sacked a manager?he was asked repeatedly to change his backroom staffand refused the situation became untenable and that was that.its not even like it’s the first time he’s been sacked for this very reason as for leave with dignity he called the press conference that has dragged this out.what’s internal club politics got to do with the buildup to the game? Shit blog basically a nonsense rant oh I suppose you did mention michu is out more Swansea team news than build-up but hey ur obviously amateur theres time to get better or at least learn that the title of an article should have something to do with its content
You just are a complete moron. No one is arguing that the club doesn’t have a right to sack a manager. They can do it the right way especially when the manager is a decent and honorable man.
FYI, if you had any bit of brains, you can tell that I am commenting on your comment and not on the blog post. So, get some neurons from somewhere because your gene pool is obviously lacking a lot.
Appreciate the comment Derek and I understand where you’re coming from. My comments were hardly an indication of my thoughts on the SCFC board or the set up as a whole, more a comment, as I mentioned, on the state of the Premier League sack race. Had we been meeting Fulham this weekend, the paragraph or so I dedicated to mentioning Laudrup would have been dedicated to René Meulensteen instead.
Obviously none of us know exactly what reasons the SCFC board used to decide to dismiss Laudrup — who I thought was doing a decent job given the resources available to him — but they’re doing themselves no favours — in the eyes of the detached, non-Swansea City supporting public anyways — by not responding to his claims that he was unfairly dismissed. The term crass certainly applies if they sacked the manager that won them their first major trophy through email. That’s disrespectful on too many levels to mention them all.
I’m sure the board has done a fantastic job running the club and as an outsider looking in, it appears they’re more focused on the fans than most Premier League outfits — something that garners a lot of respect from me.
As for Brendan Rodgers, I think he saw a chance to manage one of the biggest clubs in the world and took it. He put in a good shift at Swansea City, but his time had come — nothing more.
If you can point out where I said Liverpool never sacked a manager I’ll be quite surprised since I never wrote it.
Furthermore, these posts are dedicated to news surrounding the opposition in the build up to their meeting with Liverpool. Apologizes if that doesn’t live up to your expectations or, in some parallel universe, match the title.
I’ll call the next one “Jerking off in a Pool of Tears: The Story of Hulk Hogan”. We’ll see if anyone complains….
I think Laudrup deserved better. End of.
Agreed. Derek will probably never agree with us though. Good to know clubs think of fans a lot, but sometimes it can turn into a lynch mob.