Phil SumblerThere are times when sitting down after a game to write some thoughts on it are fun and enjoyable and there is times when you have watched two mid table Championship sides battling out a pretty uneventful 1-1 draw live on Sky TV. I think you all know which time these particular words will be about.
When you watch games like this evening you realise just how far we have regressed under Steve Cooper this season. Sure we don’t have the speed of Dan James or the goals of Oli McBurnie in the side but arguably when you look at additions to the squad, Cooper has more at his disposal this season than Potter did last time around.
Connor Gallagher and Rhian Brewster are good players but can be made to look very average by a side that has no real pace or urgency about it and seemingly very little movement to create the space that quality players need. For all his goals and effort this season Andre Ayew starts to cut a dejected figure as he realises that all the promise of early season has been falling away dramatically since August and even that first month was scattered with a few games where we were second best for large parts of the 90 minutes we were playing.
Let’s not beat around the bush tonight but we never looked like a side that was thinking of putting right the wrongs of Saturday. We never looked the side that was going to do all the things that Cooper and Matt Grimes promised us that they would and frankly we looked everything that none of us want to be. It has been a long time since the “Swansea Way” was associated with our football completely but it is as far removed from our thoughts now then at any other point in the last ten years. And remember that ten years included Bob Bradley.
Brewster’s free kick was a rare shining moment in a game that did little to sustain any level of interest and had there been a crowd then large parts of it would have surely drifted away before the end of the game. Or maybe drifted off, one or the other.
As the on loan Liverpool striker spoke to Sky Sports after the game he wondered where he would be next season and wasn’t sure if he would be back at Swansea. If you were Jurgen Klopp right now then you would probably be looking at options other than Swansea to ensure your player develops and not falls into the ranks of mediocrity that we seem to be developing.
Whilst we returned from the lockdown period with talk of a possible play off push, the reality right now is that this side is likely to finish in the bottom half of the league and the signs for next season are as worrying on the pitch as they are off it with the dangerous state of the finances.
Just remember that from our last 34 games we have picked up just 41 points and let that sink in in terms of where we are in the league and in which direction we are heading. This is a weak Championship division and we look right at home in it right now.
