Spitting Feathers
By Nigel Davies
The place where the Editor's 'ead explodes in the most spectacular fashion......
Rage-o-Meter
1 = ANGRY
2 = FURIOUS
3 = PSYCHOTIC
Football has been getting more sterile in my eyes with every passing year.
Three decades of Sky money, Premier League rule and various formats of the Champions League behaving like a closed off super league in all but name, and true competition has been drowned out of the game in an ocean of cash and self interest.
Meanwhile, on the pitch we’ve succumbed to the growing influence of “sports science”, “data analysis” and “predictability models” which have almost eradicated free will and free spirit in the game.
I was reading an article on Luke Williams the other day and I got introduced to yet another metric a team is measured by: FIELD TILT.
So apparently this is the amount of your possession that is in the opposition third of the field. Now after the first 26 games this season the Swans had an average possession figure of 53% and a field tilt of 48% which indicates that the vast majority of our possession under Michael Duff and Alan Sheehan was in the final third of the field.
Sounds exciting?
It sure as Hell wasn’t exciting to watch!
Chuck it in with possession percentage and the dreaded xG and you can arrive at the tale of Who Should Have Won The Game…
…it’s like watching a freaking maths equation being typed into a calculator, mun!
The obsession with stats and data and managers demanding perfect possession stats and sending their sides out with a thousand page instruction manual to achieve it each particular game is killing my love of football.
It’s the statistical equivalent of sending Lee Trundle out onto the field wearing a concrete straitjacket because there’s no room for a spontaneous shoulder roll amongst all those stats and instructions!
Fortunately for me, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon in the shape of new signing Ronald. The young Brazilian winger has been a breath of fresh air since his late January capture.
With a heady cocktail of pace, power and imagination, the free spirited Boy from Brazil has set about beating his opponents at every opportunity…
…and is not afraid to try something in the process, rather than merely check back to keep the ball and those possession stats ticking over.
He’s brought some genuine threat to this Swans squad (at last), thus increasing our chances of achieving the only stat that matters: more goals than the opposition
But not only that, the lad has also brought back some of the excitement to our game.
At last, fans find themselves automatically lifting their squidgy bottoms (oh, is that just mine?) out of their Dot Com seats as the Brazilian accepts the ball and the sizes up his opponent before bursting past him in a Brazilian blur.
It doesn’t always come off but it’s already brought him two goals and would have brought a handful of assists if not for the wastefulness of his new teammates.
I’m not saying that statistics and data don’t have a place but I am saying they should not be the be all and end all.
Players should be able to take charge on the pitch and take risks now and again, play what they see in front of them rather than “by the numbers”.
Football is meant to be The Beautiful Game not a pre-scripted 90 minute maths equation.
Let the spontaneity flow – Viva Ronald!
Referees are not the most popular breed of human at the Dot Com but it appears that’s down to the fact we’ve only ever seen the male of the species…until now…
Yes, the likes of Keith Stroud, Anthony Taylor, Andy Woolmer and…urgh…Bobby Madley have struck terror into many a Jack fan’s heart with the sort of incompetent decision making against the Swans that has often bordered on the suspected corrupt.
And then against Blackburn we saw the previously unseen sight of a female referee taking charge of a Swans game…
…and what a sight to behold it was as Rebecca Welch bossed the contest with understated authority and competence.
How refreshing to have a referee determined to not only let a game flow where possible but to absolutely NOT be the centre of attention or star of the show.
Ms Welch’s gloriously competent performance over 90 minutes has made a mockery of months of misogynistic and hate filled tweets by jumped up jerk off Joey Barton – and long may Rebecca leave that disgusting old dinosaur whistling in the wind of his own hateful echo chamber!
Envy…it’s one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It can be described as a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else. And I’m FULL OF IT!
So what am I so envious of? Well, I hesitate to write this. I’m really quite ashamed of myself. But they say confession is good for the soul, and so here goes…
…I’m jealous of Dirty Leeds 😳
I know I shouldn’t be and it is a burden that weighs heavily on me…but…every time I’m reminded that the Elland Road side’s squad currently boasts near half a team of former Swans talent I feel that little knot of burning in my (entirely too large and flabby) stomach as my enviousness starts to grow and consume me.
I’m not usually one to get hooked up on former players but I confess that I’m dead jealous Daniel Farke’s side as they get to watch Joe Rodon, Joel Piroe, Dan James and now Connor Roberts too, run out in the white kit of Leeds and not Swansea.
All four of those players would make an enormous difference to the Swansea City squad we have now.
I think the feeling of enviousness is magnified by the fact that three of those players came through the youth set up here, and in the case of Rodon and Roberts they are ‘Swansea Boys’.
I want to stress I have no problem with their career choices and don’t hold it against them that they now turn out for Dirty Leeds, although I do think all four of them could do better.
Huh, I’ll get over it – especially if Leeds seal promotion and so get the Hell out of the league we play in, plus cough up a few extra quid for Joel Piroe!
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is the new co-owner of Manchester United. He is also a British billionaire.
So when this jumped up, greedy little cretin buys into one of the biggest clubs in the world and then suggests that public money is given to build a new stadium, I immediately want to beat him senseless with a bundle of his own cash.
It’s bad enough that you’ve bought into a club that has untold riches pumped into it by the closed off cabals that make up the Premier League and the Champions League.
It’s bad enough that you’ve bought into a club with a an entitled fan base that moan when ONLY half a billion is pumped into an already grotesquely bloated squad whilst the likes of Torquay United fights for its very financial existence.
It’s beyond the pail though when this squalid chancer – who ‘forgot’ his lifelong allegiance to Yernited when attempting to buy Chelski off Abramovich – starts not just asking for but DEMANDING taxpayer money to enhance his latest wheeze of playing Football Manager.
You want a new ‘national stadium for the North’ big boy? Then put your short armed hand into your very long pocket and fund it yourself!!
