Swansea - the pass kings

Warper

Just saw on SSN that Britton of Swansea has the highest passing accuracy anywhere in Europe. He has something like 93%, even beating Xavi into second place. Busquets is third but another Swansea player is fourth.

To have more possession than Arsenal in a PL match is some achievement for a newly promoted club. Fair play to Rodgers for having the guts to realise that the best way of competing is to actually keep the ball on the ground and play through teams.

We have seen the likes of Blackpool and Hull start off great and then fade in the second half of the season as opponents figure out their style of play but i feel that Swansea have what it takes to stay in the League. Hats off to Swansea.

Professional Griefer

Its some achievement by them. SS broke it down the last day to passing triangles and it works very well.

As regards to the Xavi stat, its crazy, but he couldn't make half the passes Xavi does and have the % complete. Still a very very good stat though.

The Floyd p

Warper wrote: »

Just saw on SSN that Britton of Swansea has the highest passing accuracy anywhere in Europe. He has something like 93%, even beating Xavi into second place. Busquets is third but another Swansea player is fourth.

To have more possession than Arsenal in a PL match is some achievement for a newly promoted club. Fair play to Rodgers for having the guts to realise that the best way of competing is to actually keep the ball on the ground and play through teams.

We have seen the likes of Blackpool and Hull start off great and then fade in the second half of the season as opponents figure out their style of play but i feel that Swansea have what it takes to stay in the League. Hats off to Swansea.

They are in the top 5 passers in Europe with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Arsenal

Fair play to them

ASOT

Warper wrote: »

Just saw on SSN that Britton of Swansea has the highest passing accuracy anywhere in Europe. He has something like 93%, even beating Xavi into second place. Busquets is third but another Swansea player is fourth.

To have more possession than Arsenal in a PL match is some achievement for a newly promoted club. Fair play to Rodgers for having the guts to realise that the best way of competing is to actually keep the ball on the ground and play through teams.

We have seen the likes of Blackpool and Hull start off great and then fade in the second half of the season as opponents figure out their style of play but i feel that Swansea have what it takes to stay in the League. Hats off to Swansea.

Theirs another thread about it, Their also have the 6th highest pass completion as a team in europe.

dfx-

Swansea are chasing for mid-table in England with Sunderland and Villa and the likes.

Barcelona and Xavi are looking at retaining the Champions League against an obsessed Madrid side and maybe their league for a fourth successive time with the same tactic.

To compare, Mr. Britton and Swansea would want that passing success rate whilst juggling hand grenades with their feet bound together..

Jax Teller

I'd love to see them finish in the top 10 .

The important stat is how many points they have after 38 games I suppose .

MoscowFlyer

Swansea like to get the ball down and play do they? First I've heard of it.

Seriously tho, the way they kept harping on about this yesterday was bordering on embarrassing. They may as well have just come out and said how can they play this way with the crap footballers they have at the club. It's basically what they meant.

dfx-

Particularly given they also played like that under Martinez and the manager whose name eludes me (Italian or Spanish) after him. It's not overnight.

EdenHazard

dfx- wrote: »

Swansea are chasing for mid-table in England with Sunderland and Villa and the likes.

Barcelona and Xavi are looking at retaining the Champions League against an obsessed Madrid side and maybe their league for a fourth successive time with the same tactic.

To compare, Mr. Britton and Swansea would want that passing success rate whilst juggling hand grenades with their feet bound together..

its all releative, plus its not liek barcelona play against quality week in week out, most of the time they play rubbish. the stat is actually far more impressive than barcas because most of their players wouldn't be that good which makes the accomplishment even greater. the brittan guy ive never watched him, but everyone goes on about busquets pass completion and its not like he plays xavi passes, so that guy most likely is better than busquets at passing since busquets has better players around him.

great stat truely is, how many leagues were involved in this tho?

The_B_Man

Rodgers to replace Trap??

HalloweenJack

dfx- wrote: »

Particularly given they also played like that under Martinez and the manager whose name eludes me (Italian or Spanish) after him. It's not overnight.

Paulo Sousa? He's Portuguese. Now managing in Hungary.

G.K.

Ah, the old 'Busquets only looks good due to those rlound him' tripe again. Why does it never get old?

Davaeo09

G.K. wrote: »

Ah, the old 'Busquets only looks good due to those rlound him' tripe again. Why does it never get old?

Even as a Barca fan there is some thing quiet dislikeable about Busquets. Both Del Bosque and Pep have said recently if they could reincarnate them selves it would have been as Busquets.. He does the nitty gritty work for the best National Team and the best Club Side.. there must be some thing allot of you are missing lol.

Jax Teller

G.K. wrote: »

Ah, the old 'Busquets only looks good due to those rlound him' tripe again. Why does it never get old?

What was it Xavi said about him , Best one touch passer he's ever seen or something like that .

Samich

Also West Brom played good football and got praised for playing good football but it got them relegated.

K-9

Wigan have as well and they've managed to stay up for a few seasons!

Looking at the table I'd be surprised if anybody outside the bottom 5 get relegated. Swansea's home form is too good

When you take account that they were nearly out of the league 9 years ago and had money bothers, it's some achievement and sticking to their philosophy the whole way. Basically fan owned as well, must have the lowest wage budget in the PL.

cson

Nice new stadium too.

Good to see them filling it, usually lucky to be 1/3 full if the Ospreys are playing [outside of Heineken Cup].

Blazer

Ben Arfa even praised them as well when slating Pardew for not picking him on a regular basis and the style of play he wanted.
He then compared it to how Swansea played and how impressed he was with their style of play and passing.
I had to read it again as I thought someone was taking the piss but obviously not


FRENCH international Hatem Ben Arfa has moaned about Newcastle United's style — and says he wishes they played more like Swansea City.

Ben Arfa has struggled for games under Alan Pardew and admits he does not agree with the Toon manager's approach.

"It's true we don't share quite the same philosophy," said the former Marseille star.

"For him, it's more crosses, a bit of a more direct style, whereas I'm more the kind of player who likes to play short passes.

"I like to pass and move, a little bit like Swansea when we played against them.

"I was very impressed with the way Swansea played. That is the kind of football I like.

"That's the philosophy I learned at the French academy at Clairefontaine."

Ben Arfa signed a four-year deal at Newcastle when he joined them 12 months ago.

carlcon

Swansea are a lovely team to watch. Quickly becoming my favourite team to cheer on, without any kind of intense fandom/bias.

Probably helps that they're Welsh too. Just something very likeable about the whole squad, manager, fans, etc.

That_Guy

Swansea are the team that Blackpool wished they were last season.

DoctorGonzo08

carlcon wrote: »

Swansea are a lovely team to watch. Quickly becoming my favourite team to cheer on, without any kind of intense fandom/bias.

Probably helps that they're Welsh too. Just something very likeable about the whole squad, manager, fans, etc.

Not if you favour Cardiff :P

J. Marston

They're just a shít Barcelona.

I mean that in the nicest possible way.

That_Guy

J. Marston wrote: »

They're just a shít Barcelona.

I mean that in the nicest possible way.

How???

DoctorGonzo08

J. Marston wrote: »

They're just a shít Barcelona.

I mean that in the nicest possible way.

There only half the team Barca is to be fair. They haven't developed cynical fouls and theatrical diving yet which is a big part of Barcas defensive game. Good input though.

K-9

DoctorGonzo08 wrote: »

There only half the team Barca is to be fair. They haven't developed cynical fouls and theatrical diving yet which is a big part of Barcas defensive game. Good input though.

How would they do on a cold............................................

Tox56

The point is, they should be given some recognition for not going for the "Stoke" approach, trying to stay up. It's admirable what they are doing.

People are comparing the style of play between Barcelona and Swansea, which are extremely similar, not their talent. Calm down people.

K-9

Good piece on exactly how far Swansea have come from 10 years ago this month:

Looking back: 10 years ago Swansea City's Premier League fairy tale began - Swansea City News - Swansea City - Football - WalesOnline

It is ten years today that a group of local businessmen saved Swansea City from the hands of controversial owner Tony Petty and possible extinction, the first step in the club's incredible rise to the top-flight. In this article first published on the morning of the Swans' Wembley play-off victory, Football Correspondent Chris Wathan recalls the events of January 24, 2002.


LITTLE more than 90 minutes stand between Swansea City and £90m – just nine years after the club was saved by a handful of loose change.
This afternoon, 40,000-plus Swans supporters will converge on Wembley in what many are quick to call the biggest day in the club’s history.
For all the riches the Premier League could bring should Swansea succeed against Reading, none of it compares to the small change left lying on the hotel room floor that day in January 2002.
They may have only added up to £1 but, in putting the football club back into the hands of the people, the value is arguably immeasurable.

That is what it cost for a group of local businessmen – fans first and foremost – to buy out the despised Tony Petty and rescue Swansea City from oblivion.


Petty, an Australian-based Londoner, had appeared from nowhere in late 2001 to take control of the club, promising the world despite the club harbouring known debts of £800,000.
And the sceptics among the Swansea faithful quickly saw their fears realised.
“He had claimed to be involved with large Australian sporting organisations and with big backing,” says David Morgan, then a fan but now an associate director.
“It didn’t take long for us to come to the opinion he had no money.”
Having paid former owner Mike Lewis £1 to take the Vetch reins, it was little more than a week into this new era that seven players were “sacked” and a further eight told to accept a 70% pay cut or leave on free transfers before young star Stuart Roberts was sold to Wycombe for a fraction of his true value.
With the claim there was simply no money to pay them, players gathered in a pub in Wind Street in a state of shock – but it was just the start.
Disillusioned with the way the club had been run, a small band of fans met at a social club in Port Talbot.


“I had just been someone who was quite verbal on the internet, writing a few articles about the club’s finances so I was invited along,” recalls Leigh Dineen, who would become director of the Supporters Trust that emerged from that meeting. “Things gathered momentum from there, things like the protest in the game against Rushden with this belief that we could force him out of the club.”
The problem was – despite the Football League’s concerns over Petty – he was the legal owner of the club.
The grave situation, including remaining players not being paid on Christmas Eve, saw groups of local businessmen – essentially fans done good – meeting in the hope that strength in numbers could take back the club.
There was even help from within the walls of the Vetch, despite Petty – with one major player brought on board as a result.
“Brian Katzen was a successful businessman from South Africa based in New York,” explains Morgan. “He’d been in London and noticed an ad for a football club for sale, placed by Mike Lewis just before Petty came in. He was sports mad and eventually made the call to invest. Lets just say it never made its way to Petty.”


With Katzen on board, the call to the Vetch from Morgan was made to officially put an offer to buy the club, a consortium of around 10, including Martin Morgan with former player Mel Nurse spearheading things.
“All these different factions of fans had come together,” adds Dineen. “I was in vending, Huw Jenkins, who was in the background, was involved in building, Steve Penney was a solicitor, David was in insurance and there was Martin with many different business interests.
“We had all these different backgrounds, but we just knew we had to get enough money to buy the club – save the club – and then enough to get us through that first month.”


After initial attempts were rebuffed, Nurse – who by then owned the Vetch car park and club shop, and was owed money by the club – made a bid to force Swansea into administration as a means of levering Petty out.
With no money and nowhere left to go, it was Petty’s turn to make the call.
“The VAT man was ready to seize everything,” recalls Morgan. “Petty was in a corner and the call came with the words ‘Do you want to buy the club?’
“He knew if he didn’t sell then, his shares would be worthless. The club was about to go to the wall. We had the upper hand, but at the same time he knew we wanted a living, breathing football club – and he could have easily stopped that.”
A group, including Penney – another current director – made their way to the Copthorne Hotel to strike the deal.
“It took about four hours but we thrashed out the deal,” Morgan says. “We gave him his pound of flesh – but he also wanted that £1 he paid for the club before the paperwork was signed.


“We had a whip round and made sure he had it in the smallest denominations we could find. It was thrown back at us.”


Yet mixed emotions followed as the group left the hotel and headed back to Swansea.
“We had the elation of the fact we had saved our Swans – then the realisation came that we owned a football club. None of us had any experience of that. We were all businessmen but football is completely different. What the hell did we do next?
“I can remember the press conference the next day – we were like startled rabbits with the flashbulbs going off and these questions being asked.”
Adds Dineen: “Our first thought was just on saving the club. After that, we weren’t sure. All we had to that point was the bits of information given to us from one or two people within the club.”



The debts left by the former owners – around £1.7m by then – meant the club were forced to apply for a CVA – before the days of points deduction which would have surely cost the club it’s League status. With the tax man paid, more than 90% of creditors of the remaining £1.4m debt accepted the proposal to repay just 5% of what was owed.
Controversial, but essential.
“That was one of the toughest decisions,” says Dineen, now a club director in his own right but then heading up the Trust that had taken a 20% share in the club – a standing they still enjoy today.
“A lot of people were hurt, people who had worked for the club in good faith. We sat there as local businessmen, knowing the people in front of us, knowing it did not do us any favours in the local community, and then ask them to go unpaid or the club would have gone.”


With a basis to work from, annual overheads were soon slashed by £500,000, the debts cleared within months.
And a bond with the club and the city had been formed, fans now knowing that the men in control were supporters too.
The likes of John van Zweden and Don Keefe supplemented the strength of the local board, Jenkins being eventually implemented as chairman, as they tried to adopt common-sense business principles to simply make sure there was a club to support. “We stripped things down to the bones so we could essentially start again,” explains Dineen. “Myself, David and Huw took a decision to work around 25 hours a week at the club away from our own businesses for however long it took. It was tough and there were big decisions to make, but we just believed that the fans would be behind us if they knew the people in charge weren’t there to line their pockets.”
Adds Jenkins: “Looking back, you could probably say it was a ridiculous decision for me to become chairman because realistically none of us had a clue how things were going to work out.
“There was no experience at the time of running a professional football club in League Two and the pressures the job brought with that, with the scrutiny and the media.
“Every decision you make is highlighted and criticised from all quarters. I think you quickly realise and quickly grow up and that’s what we did.
“At that time there was an urgent necessity to control our finances otherwise the club couldn’t survive. We were living from week to week with what income we had coming in. We can remember numerous times when we were struggling to pay our way.”


But, while the financial worries eased, there was still the matter of League survival at stake the following season. It was accomplished with that win over Hull, the board having taken the decision to slash ticket costs to pack the Vetch, a decision vindicated when capacity crowds roared Brian Flynn’s side to safety in the closing months of the season.
From there came the significant move to the Liberty – showing the strength of the local council’s faith in the new men at the helm – before promotion, promotion and then the Premier League dream.
All based on a pledge never to mortgage the future of the club.
And it could yet turn that £1 into £90m despite no wealthy bankroller as the policies to implement a stylish identity, to be brave with managerial choices and to stick within their budgets have all come up trumps.
“I think we all had confidence with the backing we had that we could progress,” says Dineen. “Just perhaps not as quickly as it’s happened.”
Less than a decade from that meeting in a Cardiff hotel meeting room in fact.


In a perverse way, perhaps Swansea City have a lot to thank Tony Petty for.
“I hope he’s watching,” says Morgan. “I don’t know where he is or care – but what I do know is that if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
“We were all Swans fans – some of us were there as teenagers in the back of a Ford Transit going to away games – but we were only forced together because of him and what he was doing to our club.
“That six months was hell and things were very frightening to begin with – but that’s why we’ll never let this club run away with itself whatever happens.”
And, whatever happens at Wembley, Swansea City’s story will remain a priceless one.


Local businessmen and Swansea City fans David Morgan, Huw Jenkins and Leigh Dineen saved the club from going under after Tony Petty’s reign, and then worked out how best to run it Mike Lewis, above, sold the club to Australian Tony Petty, right, who stripped the club of its assets and left the Swans on the brink of oblivion

Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballnation/swanseacityfc/swansea-city-fc/2012/01/24/looking-back-10-years-ago-swansea-city-s-premier-league-fairy-tale-began-91466-30189389/2/#ixzz1kPwRYg2i