And so the last televised Premier League clash of 2014 went the same way as the first one - a Swans defeat to a side that this season graced the Champions League.

And whilst the nature of the performances could not have been much more different, it is time to look back at where we stand as the season officially reaches it's halfway point.

We have 28 points from the first 19 games played - a tally that includes wins over Manchester United and Arsenal but frustratingly points dropped at home from winning positions against the likes of Crystal Palace and Newcastle. I guess they do say that these things even themselves out over the course of a season.

We stand in 9th place in the division which is probably a fair reflection of our abilities and we also have in our ranks the Premier League's highest goalscorer of 2014 in Wilfried Bony.

On the face of it and when you read the above things are looking pretty rosy all round. It is a massive shame we ended the year with arguably our worst performance of the calendar year but that should not take any of the shine away from what we have achieved or the performances we have put in this time around.

The January transfer window will now set the tone for us and where we go in the second half of the season. Losing the likes of Ki and Bony will be a massive blow to us without a doubt and we have to overcome that so we definitely need moves into the market although it appears that we have already done that twice with news on both Oliviera and Grimes joining the Swans. A good start to the transfer window? Certainly one that we should be commended for in moving quickly to get extra players in

We still need to look at the full back situations. Rangel and Taylor are doing a job but they are not threatened enough by the other options that we have so we need to make a move into the market to replace/compete with these two.

When you take a look at the league fixtures for the next two months you see a run of games that are set for us to take a decent return of points from if we play to our ability and there is no reason not to suspect that by the end of February we could be past the 40 point barrier with more than 10 games left to play.

Of course it means that we need to make improvements on what we saw last night but then again I don't think you will find many people who disagree with that as a statement. But it is also certainly the case that last night's game is not a sure fire indication of what is to come any more than any of the previous 18 games were.

For me the optimism remains high that we will return a similar tally in the second half to the first half and that in itself will be a success and a Top 10 finish.

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