use the force Luke
By Nigel Davies
A long time ago (last summer) in a galaxy far, far away (America), the evil Emperor (Jason Levien) and his equally evil hatchet man apprentice (Paul Watson) killed off Jedi Master Martin and replaced him with a managerial Ewok named Duff. Disaster ensued, rebellion broke out amongst the Jack Army and now Martin’s apprentice has to save the Swans . You’re gonna need to use the Force, Luke…
A little warning up front; I love my pop culture almost as much as I love the Swans and so be prepared for lots of Star Wars references in this article. And now I can imagine every single reader face palming and muttering “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
Talking about having a bad feeling; it’s hard to have any other sort of feeling about the Swans at the moment as we dangle precariously above the Sarlacc pit leading to League One.
From the moment we finally, FINALLY appointed Williams to replace the disastrous Duff I’ve had the words “Use the Force Luke,” ricocheting around my tiny skull in Alec Guinness’s distinctive voice as I pray for a Jedi like miracle to arrest our on field slump.
But solving the mysteries of midichlorians looks like an easier task for our Luke given the hand he’s been dealt with.
For a start, he’s got Andy Coleman running the show above him, a character far more Jar Jar Binks than wise old Yoda.
Then there’s the squad Williams has inherited, which resembles the Mos Eisly Cantina Band rather than a collection of Jedi Knights.
Add in the fact that our attacking players shoot with the same accuracy as your average Stormtrooper, our defence is as vulnerable as those Womp Rats that keep getting bullseyed in Beggar’s Canyon, and the entire club seems determined to shoot itself in the foot with a Death Star Laser, and it’s little wonder we’re approaching League One at light speed.
One win in Williams’ first eight games has left us bang in trouble. There have been mitigating circumstances of course; to begin with, Williams entered the fray with a frightening fixture list in front of him and heavy defeats to the top four sides in the Division have hurt. But the home defeat despite dominating lowly Plymouth was like a light sabre to the gut.
An escalating injury list has also sapped at the sides’s strength and Williams must wish for one of those nifty bacta tanks so that he could miraculously heal one of our many missing right backs so that he wasn’t left relying on Kyle Naughton, great servant though he is but a player older than Yoda himself.
Add in the fact that Williams is trying to re-install his mentor Martin’s ultra passing style of play on a squad that had been forced to lurch away from that and instead adopt Duff’s (not so) high press and hit and hope game and it’s little wonder we’ve been on the wrong end of too many score lines since he came in.
That said, Williams is hardly helping himself by insisting on line higher than a High St crack addict, sending his troops out to get slaughtered against the might of Premier League standard squads still retained by Leicester, Southampton and Leeds.
Whilst Williams is more experienced as a manager than many fans remember, with a two year spell at the helm of struggling Swindon to supplement his one uber successful season at the top of the National League with Notts County, the gruelling Championship is levels above anything he’s tackled as a No.1 so far.
And he’s going to have to learn quickly because up until now he’s looked as naive as a young moisture farm boy gazing at twin suns from the parched soil of Tatooine.
For us watching on as fans we have to hope for a real Hollywood outcome as our young hero faces almost impossible odds fighting against larger than life villains (like Paul Watson) only to pull ultimate victory from the jaws of defeat.
So Luke you'd better begin using the force, starting against cardiff on saturday.
