Chris Wilder used the total lack of direction by Swansea City to heap praise on himself and his team post match yesterday. Admittedly his side deserved the win against a slow and pointless opposition in the swans but managers really do grasp on to anything to enhance their status at times. Especially Wilder, who lets be honest had he lost yesterdays game would be closer to the sack than Russell Martin is this morning.

Of course who can blame him ?

Wilder has seen Middlesbrough owner Steve Gibson dig deep this week and put more millions in to the transfer fund. He has brought in Matt Clarke from Brighton. And today we can reveal that Ethan Ampadu, an outcast at Chelsea could be joining on loan this week as well. That’s the difference between supporting a failing manager in Chris Wilder and the lack of support Russell Martin has had at Swansea. Well, that is if the majority of Swansea fans are to be believed. And that’s a tricky one in itself.

Talking himself up post match Wilder said “I think we completely deserved that win today and tactically we were at it, we sat in and kept our shape really well. We countered well, were good in both boxes and the bit in the middle, it was a different sort of game today, but I think we all understand that it’s the bit at both ends that ultimately matters most and we were the better at both ends”

You can give him that much but up against a toothless and totally lost Swansea City he went on to say “It was a right difficult game. Swansea is probably the hardest game in a lot of ways. The way they play is obviously how Russell [Martin] wants his team to play. That’s really difficult to play against. We had to show a really disciplined side to us because when we get beat at Reading, everyone in the ground wants to go ‘come on, lets press and get after them’. That is part of the game. I think we are quite good at pressing but Swansea is possibly the hardest game to play. When you’re looking at who you want to play after you have not got a result after five games, it certainly isn’t Swansea. But we kept our shape when we had a chance to break it up and counter attack, play how we did and score two goals. A bit disappointed that we’ve not extended our lead as well from their first half”

Boro fans won’t care what he says after picking up their first three points of the season but rest assured if they had come up against any side other than Swansea yesterday Wilder could well be looking at his immediate future in a completely different way. He may well be versed in managing conversations in a way that reflects positively on himself but anyone watching that game yesterday will see flaws in both sides. The swans were totally lost and that’s already been overdone, but Boro were only slightly better.

They secured the win from a terrible error from Cameron Congreve and a ball watching Matt Grimes and had the swans sneaked a late draw Millwall style you wouldn’t have been surprised.In fact any team other than the swans probably would have. Wednesdays game at Stoke becomes another must win for Russell Martin, whether they do or not you have to say come Saturday and another loss and surely that’s curtains for him at Swansea.

As it stands not many will miss him, it’s been a frustrating and pretty lifeless thirteen months.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

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