One pre-season prediction thought the Swans may have been at risk of ‘doing a Sunderland’ but despite being in the top half of the table, some worries remain.
We’re at the halfway point of the Championship season, on 23 games out of 46, but unfortunately for a number of Swansea City fans, they won’t be going into Christmas feeling especially positive about their team following a tricky first half of the campaign.
Talk about fine margins – the Swans nearly pulled off a great escape in the Premier League last season but unfortunately it wasn’t to be, and this term, their inconsistent form has seen them go into Christmas sitting 12th in the table on the back of a defeat.
Ahead of the start of the campaign, the Guardian’s fan-led 2018-19 Championship pre-season preview featured Swans fan Lance Drysdale, whose hopes for the season ahead were not the highest, suffice to say.
“Expectations have rarely been lower in the last 15 years,” he wrote. “There is a lack of experience in almost all areas and the spine of the team looks inadequate for this league. The words ‘the next Sunderland’ are not far from anyone’s lips.”
With so many players having moved on in the summer (Transfermarkt), Graham Potter had a huge rebuilding job on his hands and, considering the anxiety among some of the fans ahead of the start of the season and the fact that they’re six points from the playoffs at present should in theory be reassuring.
However, there seems to be a particular pattern to how Swansea are playing this season – a bright start to games which isn’t properly taken advantage of, complacency setting in, the opposition gets back into the match and the Swans then have to make up for it, losing shape and panicking in the process.
This is evident from their last game, the 3-2 defeat at Hull City – Wilfried Bony gave the visitors an early lead, but the Tigers went on to score three before Bersant Celina scored late on with a consolation.
A look at the match stats from Sky Sports shows Potter’s side had more possession and shots, but despite this, Swansea have now lost four Championship games having taken the lead this season.
Some fans’ comments on Twitter post-match appeared to give an insight about the team’s current state of affairs:
Going back to the Guardian preview, the prediction was for a 16th-placed finish, so in that sense, Swansea appear to be on track – and certainly not in danger of doing a Sunderland – but with the transfer window reopening in January, Potter and the board will have to consider bringing in new recruits in hopes of addressing the current inconsistency and nerves issues.
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