Team Focus: How Swansea City Can Improve On Their End Of Season Form
Back in February, Swansea City secured their first piece of major silverware in their 101-year history, comfortably overcoming Bradford City to land the Capital One Cup. Their fans, understandably ecstatic, expected big things following the result at Wembley and with European qualification secured, everything was in place for this upcoming campaign to be a big one.
However, Swansea were handed a tough start to the season - the welcome of defending champions Manchester United to the Liberty Stadium beginning it on Saturday - and their capitulation in the 4-1 defeat to David Moyes’ side continues a worrying trend from last season.
The club won just 3 of their 15 league games following the second leg of their semi-final against Chelsea, with 2 of those coming against eventually relegated teams - QPR and Wigan Athletic. After such a poor ending, manager Michael Laudrup went to work bolstering his squad over the summer months, with Jonjo Shelvey, José Cañas and Wilfried Bony amongst those to arrive during the transfer window, the latter of whom was a club record signing.
The capture of Bony is expected to ease the goalscoring burden on Michu, the Spaniard netting 18 Premier League goals in his debut Premier League season - only Robin van Persie (26), Luis Suárez (23), Gareth Bale (21) and Christian Benteke (19) scored more. Yet, after securing their place in the Capital One Cup final, Swansea scored just the 13 goals in their remaining 15 games; an average of 0.87 per game - a significant drop from 34 in their previous 23, where the Swans were averaging 1.48 goals per game.
Evidently, following the victory over Chelsea, key members of the team saw their form drop significantly, denoted in that Swansea’s average team WhoScored.com rating dropped from 6.85 from the first 23 games to 6.72 in the final 15.
That 0.13 differential was the highest negative difference of every Premier League team in the same timespan, denoting just how poor their form was between the end of January and May. Swansea may have secured a 9th placed finish last term, but a higher finish could have been accrued had the players churned out the performances that won them such widespread acclaim between August and February.
The lack of goals ultimately cost them. It's this dramatic drop in goals that saw Laudrup pursue Bony so vigorously this summer and sign him from Vitesse. The Ivory Coast international netted 31 goals in the Eredivisie and scored during Saturday’s 4-1 defeat to United; the first time Swansea have netted a Premier League goal against a David Moyes led side in 5 matches.
Spending just 23% of their time on the ball in the opposition third last season - that figure the lowest of every Premier League team - a more prolific finisher and one that will allow Michu to operate in his much preferred role behind the main striker would aid Swansea significantly. Moreover, having spent 48% of the time they're in possession in the midfield third - the highest of every team last year - the opposition allowing Swansea possession in a relatively danger-free area of the pitch poses little threat and it further denotes as to why Bony was signed, especially with his goalscoring exploits in Holland over the 2012/13 campaign.
Gaining an insightful view into how their season will go after just the one game of the campaign may be nigh on impossible, but it was worrying to see Swansea carefully dismantled by United. The Swans had the larger share of possession (53.7%) in the game and their pass success of 86.7% was bettered only by Manchester City (91.1%), Everton (88.3%) and Arsenal (87.2%) on the opening weekend of Premier League fixtures. However, having fired away 17 shots - 3 more than United - being more clinical in front of goal could have ensured this ability on the ball would not have gone to waste.
These stats follows a similar pattern to last season, in which Swansea averaged 55.3% possession and a pass success of 85% between August and May - their total of 16954 accurate passes last year was bettered only by Arsenal (18075) and Manchester City (17049) - and it's expected that the club will aim to adopt an identical approach this coming campaign, no matter how incorrigible their attacking performance on Saturday was. Yet, time in possession must lead to goals and with Bony now available to Laudrup, the 24-year-old will be expected to provide this penetrative threat for the club this season.
Without being able to follow this up, Swansea may go on endure a rough start to the campaign. Shaking out of the mentality that saw them pick up just 13 points from a possible 45 at the end of the last season is crucial if they’re to build on their 9th placed finish from last year and, potentially, enjoy a successful European campaign on the back of their Capital One Cup success in February.
