Swansea’s Transfer Window and Match Preview

Swansea fans seem to be approaching this game with the same attitude as are we.  This is a winnable game of the sort that must be won in order to have a really good season.  However, a loss does not suggest that a relegation battle is ahead. This means that a draw would be a bad result for both teams because it will strongly suggest that nothing better than a mid-table finish should be expected.

I watched the Youtube video of Garry Monk’s press conference this week.  He spoke about Southampton and his time here.  I transcribed the Southampton relevant parts of the video.  As always, I removed the false starts and verbal ticks.  This press conference was certainly more interesting than the Alan Pardew press conference of last week.  Monk was quite a bit more relaxed.  Maybe he thinks his job is safe.

Q:  And I was going to say a different story now with Southampton--well you are at home so that makes it different from the start.  At the beginning of the season people were saying they sold 70 odd percent of their goals from last season during the summer and being a club the size of Southampton could they ever recover from that?  Does it look as if they have recovered from it?

Monk:  I think so.  Selling all those players for a lot of money they have also used that money to buy in very quality players as well and at this moment in time they are playing very well especially their last two games where they performed extremely high level and scoring goals last week especially against Newcastle.  I thought they played some fantastic football...some very good goals... and they have threats, they have threats everywhere.  It's never easy when you lose players that have done very well for you in the past but it's important that you replace them with as good a quality as what you lost and I think Southampton have done that.

Q: You think they have replaced ...

Monk:  Yeah. I think so. I think it shows in the way they are playing.  Obviously the new players who have come in have scored goals so obviously--like you talked about--if  they have lost goals then people who have come in can score goals that obviously what they are doing this moment in time.

Q:  Rather like Swansea they play to a style.  Has that style changed dramatically this season?

Monk:  I think there has been tweaks to it to what they were doing before under Pochettino but very similar to ourselves in the way they set up and how they go about their jobs.  We see their wingers are a little bit more inside than ours and float about a little bit more.  But no, I think the mentality of the group seems to be the same in the way they go about their business and the football they are playing is pretty similar but obviously with the tweaks the new manager has put in place.

Q:  Do you still look for Southampton's results?

Monk: Yeah. Of course.  Probably even more so now that they are in our league, but, obviously, my focus is Swansea but my time at Southampton was brilliant.  I've talked about it many times.  As an education for me as a young player coming through with the pros that I had there at the time was probably one of the best I could have had and I have good affection.  I have a lot of friends still down at Southampton.  Yeah, of course, I look for their results.

Other subjects for a while

Q:  You talked about Southampton with Roger there.  Ronald Koeman has he impressed you since he has come into the British game as a manager?

Monk:  Yeah.  I said in the last few questions that Southampton have started very  well in the season.  Obviously, a place behind us...performing very well especially their last two games playing some good football and the way that we looked to them and watched them in those games, it will be a very difficult game for us.  We will be under no illusions how tough it’s going to be for us.  We had a disappointing performance at the end of last season here to lose the game with a bit of a comedy goal so that will be something that we look to put right but no I have to speak very highly of them.  They have done very well.

Q:  When you think back to your time as a player at Southampton with experienced players like Matt Le Tissier and  Francis Benali and guys like that did it shape you as a manager and a person?  Is there a part of your time at Southampton that you really took with you to the man you are today?

Monk:  Definitely.  It definitely taught me a lot.  I had players there at that time where, you talked about Matt Le Tissier; and, we had Jason Dodd who was the captain; Francis Benali;  we had older pros like Dan Petrescu come in; Kanchelskis came in at that time; Carlton Palmer; David Hirst; all these experienced pros that had been around the game for so long and they were great with me, great with the younger boys.  Obviously, I was in the first team environment at that point learning my trade.  Claus Lundekvam; Dean Richards at the time; we had so many pros to learn off.  The thing was they were good pros.  They really took us under their wings and made it hard on us but they were really fair and I learned so much.  If I look at three or four of them at that time they were at the club for over ten years.  They were coming up to their testimonial years at the time in the years that I was there.  It is funny how it works out that I ended up going that long here.  Whether that had an effect I don't know really but I definitely learned loyalty and dedication from them guys because that's what they preached every day.  You'd see it in training even if they weren't playing.  Even as they got on towards the end of their careers and they weren't playing week in and week out their dedication to their trade and their club was amazing so in my mind I probably took it on board.

Q:  Was Mark Hughes there at that time?

Monk:  Yes, Mark Hughes as well.  Had some great pros, unbelievable pros when you really look back and think about it and you go through the list.  They were really good.

TRANSFERS

Swansea had as busy a transfer season as we did, but on a much lower scale financially.  Of course, had we tried to buy Gylfi Sigurdsson, we would have been charged a lot more money.

As always, I evaluated the transfers using information from Football Manager (FM) 2014 and Transfermarkt.   CA stands for current ability in FM.  PA stands for potential ability.  Both are on a scale of 0 to 200.  Negative PA scores reflect a young player’s potential with -10 being the best and very rare.    I ignored players who were loaned in both this year and last, loaned out during both years, or loaned in last year and bought this year when evaluating transfer business.

INCOMING TRANSFERS

Player                                   CA                          PA                          Transfer Fee (in millions of pounds)

Bafetimbi Gomis               144                         145                         free

Gylfi Sigurdsson                142                         165                         8.89

Lukasz Fabianski               138                         148                         free

Federico Fernandez         135                         152                         8.8

Jefferson Montero           134                         150                         4.4

Tom Carroll                       128                         157                         loan

Stephen Kingsley              88                           -6                            undisclosed

Modou Barrow                 85                           -6                            undisclosed

James Demetriou             56                           -6                            free

OUTGOING TRANSFERS

Michu                                  150                         160                         loan (1.1 fee)

Michael Vorm                    148                         152                         5.01

Chico Flores                       137                         156                         4.4

Pablo Hernandez              137                         156                         4.4

Jonathan de Guzman       135                         155                         end of loan

Roland Lamah                   134                         145                         end of loan

Alvaro Vasquez                 132                         155                         end of loan

Jose Alberto Canas          130                         140                         free

David N’Gog                      127                         140                         free

Ben Davies                         126                         159                         11.13

Leroy Lita                           121                         126                         free

Alejandro Pozuelo            120                         -8                            free

Gwion Edwards                  90                           -7                            undisclosed

Jernade Meade                  80                           -6                            free

Kris Scott                             51                           -5                            free

Overall the transfer window looks like a net negative for Swansea—at least according to FM 2014.  However, the biggest negative was the loss of Michu who did not play much last year.  If you take that transfer out of the equation, it looks like there was not much of a change in squad quality.  However, the loss of their top notch young fullback, Ben Davies, seems familiar.  Even worse, they lost him to Tottenham.

Transfermarket values Swansea’s entire roster at 87.78 million pounds which is 14^th in the BPL.  We are 8^th at 129.14 million pounds. To the extent this accurately reflects reality, it suggests that we are a stronger and deeper team. 

SWANSEA STARTING ELEVEN

Last year’s starting eleven is based on the players who got the most playing time.  This year’s is based on the best CA’s at each position—more or less—except I am treating Shelvey as the starter.

Position                                Last year(CA)                     This year(CA)

G                                             Vorm 148                             Fabrianski 138

LB                                           Ben Davies 126                  Taylor 135

CB                                           Williams 145                       145

CB                                           Flores 137                            Amat 135

RB                                           Rangel 135                          135

CM                                         de Guzman135                  Ki 139

CM                                         Shelvey 126                        126

AM                                         Routledge 135                   135

AM                                         Hernandez 137                  Sigurdsson 142

AM                                         Dyer 139                              139

ST                                           Bony 147                              147

Swansea has lost 12 points of CA at two positions and picked up 18 points at three positions for a total gain of six points.  This means that their FM based first team strength is 1516 whereas ours is 1545. 

INJURY LIST AND THIS WEEK’S LINEUP

This is the injury list from the BPL website:

Southampton:  Rodriguez, Isgrove, Gallagher, Mane (but I don’t think he is injured—just unavailable)

Swansea:  Jordi Amat, Alan Tate, Leon Britton, Rory Donnelly

STARTING LINEUP

For Swansea’s stating line up, I took last week’s line up and replaced the one newly injured player with the consensus replacement.  For us, I took my best guess based upon who we played last week.

SWANSEA                                                           SOUTHAMPTON

POS                        PLAYER                 POS        PLAYER

G                             Fabrianski 138                    G             Forster 138

LB                           Taylor 135                            LB           Bertrand 140

CB                           Williams 145                       CB           Alderweireld 140

CB                           Fernandez 135                   CB           Fonte 130

RB                           Rangel 135                          RB           Clyne 140

CM                         Ki 139                                   CM         Cork 135

CM                         Shelvey 126                        CM         Schneiderlin 141

AM                         Routledge 135                   CM         Davis 135

AM                         Sigurdsson 142                  LW          Tadic 146

AM                         Dyer 139                             ST           Pelle 132

ST                           Bony 147                             RW         Long 142

Swansea’s line up totals 1516 CA.  Ours totals 1519 CA. Presumably this means that I should predict a draw on Saturday.  The problem is that I know 130 underrates Fonte, 140 underrates Clyne, 141 underrates Schneiderlin, and 132 underrates Pelle.  I suspect Forster and Cork are underrated as well.  Of course, Swansea fans probably feel their players are underrated too, but I have only seen their game against Chelsea so I can’t evaluate that. 

On the other hand, Swansea has earned nine points from teams that earned 18 points out of 36 in their other games.  We have earned seven points from teams that have earned 10 out of 36 points in other games. In other words, Swansea has played better that we have against opponents that are playing better than our opponents.  And they beat West Brom.  Our goal differential is slightly better but it is too early to put much weight on that.

Since there is no consequence for picking incorrectly and my preseason pick was for Swansea to finish 14^th,  I was going to predict a Southampton victory.  But then I realized that I picked Newcastle to finish 8^th ahead of us at 9^th.  Good thing I ignored that last week.  So I will reluctantly predict a draw.