Antonio Conte took over 30 minutes following todays game to leave the dressing room to fulfill his duties to speak to the press and when he did the pain on his face was obvious. He tellingly spoke of our inability to kill of the game in the first half when we had ample opportunities and there in are the words of a wise man. I am certain that those 30 plus minutes he spent with the team post match were not wasted commiserating and saying to the boys,well done. I am sure he wasn`t telling them, never mind chaps..we were done by an incompetent ref and those thuggish Swansea lads. Hell No..i am certain he was rightfully laying into the team ( particularly some particular players who did not exactly cover themselves in glory) for gifting a mediocre Swansea team a point they did not deserve and by so doing doing also depriving us of two critical points which by season`s end may turn up to be critical in deciding top 4 positioning and who knows maybe even the BPL title.
Therefore I would counsel all my fellow fans who on the match thread was complaining to the high heavens about Andre Mariner and about the fouls the Swansea team were committing; guys QUIT WHINING and lay the blame where it rightfully belongs. We bottled it and all the blame for leaving Wales today with one instead of three points lie squarely with us and no-one else.
This realization is important because only be acknowledging this and ruthlessly assessing where the problems lie with us can we improve and hopefully make sure this sort of debacle does not repeat itself. I am so glad that unlike the way Jose typically handles this kind of situation Conte did not blame the refs, did not blame the opposing players and did not throw his players publically under the bus but I have no doubt that the man who earned the nickname the “the Hammer” for the forceful way his words assault you ( quoting Giorgio Chiellini) rightfully laid into our lads as they deserved behind closed doors of the locker room.
So where does the true blame lie you may ask;
1. A wasteful attacking band that did not play with intensity, sense of urgency and clinical poise required of a team that claims to have intents on a top 4 finish not to mention BPL title. Go compare the intensity that City showed playing away at the theater of dreams or Spurs showed playing away at Stoke and you will see what I mean. It is hard to blame a guy like Costa whose brace secured us a point but he has a part to play here because despite the two wonderful goals he scored the wide open chance he fluffed during the first half (which was way easier to have converted than the ones he did score) had he made would have changed the complexion of the match entirely. Worse he picked up another needless yellow card (that is now 3 in 4 matches in case you lost count). Even Worse, he was again riding a very thin line and if we are to be honest was again guilty of diving when he was one on one against Fabianski when it would have been easier to just stay on his feet and round the goalie and take a shot on goal. His feeble attempt to secure a PK was ill advised on multiple levels (the minimal contact Fabianski had with him was outside the box anyway and so even if a foul had been called it would not have been an PK, he easily could have received a second yellow for simulation for that and been sent of but worse he is solidifying a reputation of being the boy who cries wolf and so don`t be surprised when he is actually fouled inside or outside the box in the future and the refs refuse to blow). With three yellows already Costa will likely be facing his first suspension for card accumulation pretty soon and then we will be entirely dependent on Bats for our goal scoring with no option B should we be chasing a game the way we were today. (That is the precarious situation having only two senior strikers has us right now and it is not a great place to be in)
However, Costa and Hazard did show up at least and honestly I feel that can hardly be said of Willian and Oscar. I don`t know if anyone else sees through his hustle and endless running to see that in reality Willian adds little value to the attacking band in terms of accurate shooting, well timed forward passes, speeding up the offense etc. Also, since about mid of last season his set piece delivery on both corners and free kicks has been dreadful to put it mildly. Victor Moses for me did more along the lines of being an effective attacking wing option in his short cameo time. I also honestly felt that fabregas would have been a much better starter in the 4 man mid field than Oscar. That said I cannot blame Conte for going with a line up that had prior to this time managed 3 wins out of three. More than the personell it was the attitude and focus that was sorely lacking and in that first half when this game should have been done and dusted possession for possession`s sake with inadequate directness and cutting edge came back to bite us in the behind as it has done so many times before.
2. We have a back line sorely lacking in any pace. This we have known for at least 2 seasons now but it was brutally exposed today why this is such a problem. Prior to this game Swansea were already one of the early relegation candidate considerations..they had scored only two goals in their prior 3 games. We gifted them two more in under 5 minutes. With just one cross field pass our entire center back line and right flank was exposed because of the lack of any pace to enable recovery. This was compounded by the issue I will mention in point 3 and just like that we conceded a foolish PK against a team that hitherto had not had even one shot on goal. If we can be so exposed against a really inept and mediocre offense can you start to imagine how ugly things may get against teams like the Manchester cartel of teams, Spurs, Liver pool, the gunners?? Let me state for emphasis . Swansea really had just two shots on goal in that entire match and scored on those two occasions. They are not a picture of attacking efficiency. The prior 3 matches bear that out. Those stats look so good because of how poor our defensive line really is.
I read somewhere of Gary Cahill complaining he was fouled on the second goal. Well boohoo!!! He is a BPL vet . He knows better than anyone that you always play to the whistle. It is not a foul and you cannot assume it is till that whistle blows. He knows that this is the BPL where far more physical play is allowed than in La Liga, Serie A etc. Rather than complaining he needs to just hold his hand up and take responsibility for dwelling on the ball way too long. He needs to acknowledge and understand how dangerous it is to take the sort of risk his languid on ball posture entailed especially with a CB partner as slow as JT who thus cannot recover to assist him when such mistakes happen. Cahill who otherwise was decent for most of the game bears the lion share of the blame for the gift which was Swansea`s second goal and he had better have learnt his lesson from it rather than foolishly expecting a ref to bail him out the next time that sort of scenario arises.
The lesson is simple. With a back line like ours where 3 of the 4 pieces have really no pace for recovery from errors , there is no room for lackadesical play. There is no room for needless back passes ( which we still do way too often), there is no room for careless wandering up the field, no room for taking needless touches or lingering on the ball, there is no place for high defensive lines that we don`t have the pace to cope with or effectively execute. Kante was marvelous in this game but he is still only one man and he cannot cover for this back line when members of the backline cannot even maintain a modicum of competence against even mediocre opposition.
3. We have an average goal keeper. Yes this may sound hyperbolic to some but it is way past time folks came to the reality that the TC of the Atletico Madrid days is simply not the person we have manning our posts now. This reality is very important to understand especially given the state of our backline because it means if our backline is breached chances are there is no salvation coming from a great keeper as our last line of defense.
On the first goal TC rushes out for a cross ( as he has done several times to devastating effect in his last two seasons with us) and clearly misjudges the cross. Because of that error in judgement he is unable to kick or head the ball first time and the bounce then puts him in more jeopardy. Worse, after that bad decision with the ball headed to the left flank and his defenders finally able to get back he still felt he had to challenge for the ball against a Swansea attacker who was running towards the left wide side in the 18 yard box resulting in a needless PK. The wise thing to do would have been to either retreat to his goal or simply make himself big and shadow the attacker. He did neither and his rash tackle gifted Swansea a PK and a goal. Before people start to claim he had no choice compare how he handled this with how fabianski handled a similar dicey situation when he had to deal with first hazard and then Costa. He wisely and promptly came out and made decisive decisions both times preventing both attackers from having a direct shot on goal but more importantly he made sure he did this outside the 18 yard box to prevent a PK even if all went bad. That is what a smart keeper does. Go back in our archives, TC`s decision making especially when he comes of his line has been suspect for a long time and this is not the first time he has given away a poor PK as a result. Gaolkeeping maxim 101..if you as a keeper leave your line make damn sure you either catch the ball or you send it far outside your 18 yard box via kick or punch. It appears this simple rule has been lost on TC and this is a recurring theme that immediately diminishes even the best shot stopper to being a mediocre goal keeper on the largest stage. TC was in fact saved from seeing red this time only because members of our defensive line had recovered to get back behind him otherwise his poor decision making could have seen us down a man and we may have lost all three points consequently playing 10 v 11.
On the second goal TC comes out again but the single thing any quality goal keeper is supposed to do when you are one on one with an attacker he does not do. He does not make himself “big” by spreading out and so trying to shepherd the attacker one way or the other. Instead he opens wide his legs and gets nutmegged. Again for comparison see how Fabianski handled himself when he was one on one with hazard earlier in the match in the first half. The point here is not to say TC is to blame for the second goal. He is not..it is to say that he could not prevent it shows that he is really no more than an average last line of defense for us. Fabianski is BTW not a world class keeper (Thats why the gunners shipped him out ) but he certainly acquiited himself way better today than TC did today which is telling seeing that he faced way more shots and attacks than TC did. One could argue that the two goals Fabianski conceded would have beaten guys like Ospina, Cech, De-gea, Neuer and Buffon..the same cannot be said of the PK TC conceded or the second goal he conceded.
In summary, We dropped two crucial points today not because of Swanseas physicality ( what do you expect from a mid table to bottom half side playing at their home) or because of the refs (It should be abundantly clear that BPL refs are poor and any team that leaves results in their hands has themselves to blame and no one else..City certainly didn`t allow Clattenburg derail them against ManU ) but because of our own ineptitude and complacency when we had ample chance to kill of the game as Conte said. I hope our boys learn the hard lessons from this rather than looking for sympathy that no-one in the BPL will afford them. Same thing for us fans. No point whining. Our team needs to play much better, much smarter and with greater intensity and sense of urgency if we are to claim one of those top 4 positions by May next year. We must be clinical in front of the opposing goal..missing gilt edged chances often will get punished eventually. If you dont kill of a match when you have the chance dont complain when the opposition eventually comes back to punish you. Nuff said. Lets hope our boys were listening when Conte was laying into them rather than looking for some other place to lay the blame. KTBFFH
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