| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff 08:00 - Aug 14 with 3331 views | SwansIndependent |
Genuine thoughts, click above.
This post has been edited by an administrator |  | | |  |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:03 - Aug 14 with 2748 views | onehunglow |
A considerable read and frankly rather unsettling .
It’s just me though.
I am rather rattled right now. | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:17 - Aug 14 with 2715 views | Thornburyswan |
Decent article & fair assessment - I believe we as fans need to accept that this will be a season of considerable change, hopefully most of that change now done, which is likely to lead to a range of performances & results with new coaching & recruitment teams matched with 8/9 new first team squad players plus a significant change in playing style.
If we finish top half it will be a solid first year & allow MD to fine tune in readiness for next season - I know some fans won’t want to buy into that but hey ho it’s all about opinions. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:22 - Aug 14 with 2685 views | onehunglow |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:17 - Aug 14 by Thornburyswan |
Decent article & fair assessment - I believe we as fans need to accept that this will be a season of considerable change, hopefully most of that change now done, which is likely to lead to a range of performances & results with new coaching & recruitment teams matched with 8/9 new first team squad players plus a significant change in playing style.
If we finish top half it will be a solid first year & allow MD to fine tune in readiness for next season - I know some fans won’t want to buy into that but hey ho it’s all about opinions. |
The ideal is for us to actually build a base then build without knocking down that which we have built already.
For whatever reason, we have failed
Looking at the likes of Brighton ,Bournemouth and Brentford makes me feel Woosey.
They are templates as to how it’s done
These are the questions we should ask. | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:46 - Aug 14 with 2607 views | cadleigh |
Can we agree to disagree on Martin? Personally I felt he rarely accepted responsibility for what went wrong with his match plans and was too quick to blame individual players. I don’t feel he handled himself as well as you do. But it’s all personal opinion at the end of the day.
I think, looking at this from further away than you do, that we can say that Duff has a stronger team around him than Martin ever did, with Watson a clear upgrade on Winter, and that there is a ‘golden thread’ in the club’s dealings which seems to continue despite the revolving door at higher levels - so some of the players we were tracking under Cooper joined us under Martin, Martin-era targets are now joining us under Duff. Maybe there’s more continuity than we think. | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:52 - Aug 14 with 2588 views | onehunglow |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:46 - Aug 14 by cadleigh |
Can we agree to disagree on Martin? Personally I felt he rarely accepted responsibility for what went wrong with his match plans and was too quick to blame individual players. I don’t feel he handled himself as well as you do. But it’s all personal opinion at the end of the day.
I think, looking at this from further away than you do, that we can say that Duff has a stronger team around him than Martin ever did, with Watson a clear upgrade on Winter, and that there is a ‘golden thread’ in the club’s dealings which seems to continue despite the revolving door at higher levels - so some of the players we were tracking under Cooper joined us under Martin, Martin-era targets are now joining us under Duff. Maybe there’s more continuity than we think. |
I like Chris Martin | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 10:43 - Aug 14 with 2496 views | union_jack |
Are we just scrutinising Duff too much at this point? All this will serve to do is put doubts in people’s minds and put more pressure in him.
We are 2 games in with a number of new players alongside a bunch of others who don’t know where they’ll be in a couple of weeks time. Couple that with a brand new style of playing and we have to give him time.
Such scrutiny, criticism or whatever should be put on hold at least for 10 games.
Yes, we were all concerned by Saturday’s game fir 65 mins but we may need to go one step back to go two forward.
Give him time!! |  |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 11:26 - Aug 14 with 2432 views | GixerJack |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:52 - Aug 14 by onehunglow |
I like Chris Martin |
Paltrow is a bit odd mind |  | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 11:46 - Aug 14 with 2418 views | sw02sea |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:22 - Aug 14 by onehunglow |
The ideal is for us to actually build a base then build without knocking down that which we have built already.
For whatever reason, we have failed
Looking at the likes of Brighton ,Bournemouth and Brentford makes me feel Woosey.
They are templates as to how it’s done
These are the questions we should ask. |
We were considered “The Template “ not so long ago.
Which Reminds me of one of the best quotes concerning Georgie Best :
“So George, where did it all go wrong ?”
The hotel bellboy who delivered champagne to Best's room and found him entertaining a scantily-clad Miss World on a bed covered with his winnings from the casino. | | | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 13:02 - Aug 14 with 2323 views | guthrieintherain |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:22 - Aug 14 by onehunglow |
The ideal is for us to actually build a base then build without knocking down that which we have built already.
For whatever reason, we have failed
Looking at the likes of Brighton ,Bournemouth and Brentford makes me feel Woosey.
They are templates as to how it’s done
These are the questions we should ask. |
Brighton and Brentford have spent huge amounts of money especially Brighton.
Easy to speculate when you have such vast amounts to invest.
On the flip side you could look at the likes of Derby,Reading and Bury and thank our lucky stars it's not us. [Post edited 14 Aug 2023 13:08]
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 13:12 - Aug 14 with 2300 views | SullutaCreturned |
Of course we are a stepping stone, every club is until the manager retires. Even Pep Guardiola has stepped on other stones before he got to Manchester.
Stepping stones on the way to Old Trafford, East Stirlingshire, St Mirren, Aberdeen, Scotland.... | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 15:33 - Aug 14 with 2159 views | onehunglow |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 13:02 - Aug 14 by guthrieintherain |
Brighton and Brentford have spent huge amounts of money especially Brighton.
Easy to speculate when you have such vast amounts to invest.
On the flip side you could look at the likes of Derby,Reading and Bury and thank our lucky stars it's not us. [Post edited 14 Aug 2023 13:08]
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Friend.
My point is that these are not big clubs as we know them.
Brighton were homeless for years
Brentford a nonentity playing in a crap hole ground.
New ownership and astute management and stewardship has seen them where they are . | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 15:39 - Aug 14 with 2158 views | Whiterockin |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 15:33 - Aug 14 by onehunglow |
Friend.
My point is that these are not big clubs as we know them.
Brighton were homeless for years
Brentford a nonentity playing in a crap hole ground.
New ownership and astute management and stewardship has seen them where they are . |
Agreed, both with an excellent buying selling model. |  | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 16:00 - Aug 14 with 2121 views | SullutaCreturned |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 15:33 - Aug 14 by onehunglow |
Friend.
My point is that these are not big clubs as we know them.
Brighton were homeless for years
Brentford a nonentity playing in a crap hole ground.
New ownership and astute management and stewardship has seen them where they are . |
And one day the wheels will come off for them too and they'll be relegated. it's happened to Brighton before.
We were viewed as a role model club for a few years but nothing lasts forever. Not unless you have backers with massive resources. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 16:05 - Aug 14 with 2101 views | onehunglow |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 16:00 - Aug 14 by SullutaCreturned |
And one day the wheels will come off for them too and they'll be relegated. it's happened to Brighton before.
We were viewed as a role model club for a few years but nothing lasts forever. Not unless you have backers with massive resources. |
Not so sure Sir.
Brighton have real money and are making massive profit on player including the chap who’s gone recently for £110 million.
They are in safe hands ,as are tiny club Brentford .
Our fall was sickening and unforgivable | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 16:14 - Aug 14 with 2096 views | SullutaCreturned |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 16:05 - Aug 14 by onehunglow |
Not so sure Sir.
Brighton have real money and are making massive profit on player including the chap who’s gone recently for £110 million.
They are in safe hands ,as are tiny club Brentford .
Our fall was sickening and unforgivable |
We thought we were in safe hands, you cannot predict the future. Brighton have benefitted from a crazy trnasfer market, Ten Haag said as much himself, that prices have shot up this season. 115 million for Caicedo seems very high. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 17:25 - Aug 14 with 2030 views | KeithHaynes |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 13:12 - Aug 14 by SullutaCreturned |
Of course we are a stepping stone, every club is until the manager retires. Even Pep Guardiola has stepped on other stones before he got to Manchester.
Stepping stones on the way to Old Trafford, East Stirlingshire, St Mirren, Aberdeen, Scotland.... |
I think we are steering somewhat away from the point |  |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 19:39 - Aug 14 with 1954 views | SullutaCreturned |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 17:25 - Aug 14 by KeithHaynes |
I think we are steering somewhat away from the point |
Yes the club needs stability, yes the fans need to allow time and not expect the first 2 games to be stunning football. Yes the manager needs to handle pressure at a level he may not have felt before.
That's football, any manager that steps up a league faces the same questions and expectations as any player except if a player fails he may be given more time, put in the stiffs, sent out on loan before being sold and maybe dropping back down. The manager gets a small amount of time, then the dreaded vote of confidence and sometimes not even that. Then the sack. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 22:33 - Aug 14 with 1833 views | BillyChong |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 13:02 - Aug 14 by guthrieintherain |
Brighton and Brentford have spent huge amounts of money especially Brighton.
Easy to speculate when you have such vast amounts to invest.
On the flip side you could look at the likes of Derby,Reading and Bury and thank our lucky stars it's not us. [Post edited 14 Aug 2023 13:08]
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Brighton have spent a few quid but are still around £100m up on sales v signings this window. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 23:55 - Aug 14 with 1792 views | ModeratorD |
I found the article, whilst honest, rather dark and downbeat.
I feel at this point we fans are surely in an upbeat mode, with new faces arriving and the future seemingly more positive than in several summers.
The icing on the cake would be if Piroe were to sign a new deal and stay.
Overall I feel everyone, including Michael Duff, have much to be positive about.
Certainly way too early for talk of failure and sacking, however theoretical it may be. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 08:48 - Aug 15 with 1687 views | cadleigh |
Fact is, we are punching above our weight and have been for 15 or 16 seasons now.
There is a direct correlation between average gates/ground capacity and average league position over the past 20 years. There are very few exceptions, and these are clubs with very rich owners (on the plus side) or debt (on the negative side). Plus Watford (don’t ask me why).
Rich owners are a risky route to success - look at Hearts or Portsmouth.
Based on our ground size we should be a struggling Championship side at best, not a team challenging for promotion.
Norwich are a great model in this respect - they expanded their stadium, filled the seats, kept them filled in bad times, and turned into an EPL/Championship yo-yo team as a result.
OK, so maybe the financial model is changing and more clubs are running at a loss thanks to quite wealthy owners like ours, but long term success IMO will come from stadium expansion and getting more young supporters in the habit of attending every game, rain, shine or TV screening notwithstanding. That’s how you get closer to the end of the stepping stones. | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:39 - Aug 15 with 1644 views | Whiterockin |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 08:48 - Aug 15 by cadleigh |
Fact is, we are punching above our weight and have been for 15 or 16 seasons now.
There is a direct correlation between average gates/ground capacity and average league position over the past 20 years. There are very few exceptions, and these are clubs with very rich owners (on the plus side) or debt (on the negative side). Plus Watford (don’t ask me why).
Rich owners are a risky route to success - look at Hearts or Portsmouth.
Based on our ground size we should be a struggling Championship side at best, not a team challenging for promotion.
Norwich are a great model in this respect - they expanded their stadium, filled the seats, kept them filled in bad times, and turned into an EPL/Championship yo-yo team as a result.
OK, so maybe the financial model is changing and more clubs are running at a loss thanks to quite wealthy owners like ours, but long term success IMO will come from stadium expansion and getting more young supporters in the habit of attending every game, rain, shine or TV screening notwithstanding. That’s how you get closer to the end of the stepping stones. |
It's a fine balancing act. Our tickets are cheap compared to other clubs and the ground is still not full. In the Premier League we did not sell out every week. While match day turnover benefits will give you an advance in lower leagues it's less so in the Premier League. If we extended capacity by 5,000 and we sold all the tickets for every game. If you then take an average spend of £40 allowing for concessions and children that's £200,000 per game, £3.8M per 19 home games in a Premier league season, probably less than 2% of turnover, this includes VAT and doesn't make allowance for the extra costs involved to service these extra 5,000, then would we sell them all every game. Does it make economical sense unless we sell out every week, without doing promotions like kids for a quid. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:46 - Aug 15 with 1628 views | cadleigh |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:39 - Aug 15 by Whiterockin |
It's a fine balancing act. Our tickets are cheap compared to other clubs and the ground is still not full. In the Premier League we did not sell out every week. While match day turnover benefits will give you an advance in lower leagues it's less so in the Premier League. If we extended capacity by 5,000 and we sold all the tickets for every game. If you then take an average spend of £40 allowing for concessions and children that's £200,000 per game, £3.8M per 19 home games in a Premier league season, probably less than 2% of turnover, this includes VAT and doesn't make allowance for the extra costs involved to service these extra 5,000, then would we sell them all every game. Does it make economical sense unless we sell out every week, without doing promotions like kids for a quid. |
All good points, but I still think the examples of Norwich, Arsenal and West Ham trump the Coventry one. It can be done if you try hard enough (and have a bit of luck too probably). When I get back from holiday I’ll see if Keith would like at article on this and we can get a thread going. | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:54 - Aug 15 with 1616 views | Whiterockin |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:46 - Aug 15 by cadleigh |
All good points, but I still think the examples of Norwich, Arsenal and West Ham trump the Coventry one. It can be done if you try hard enough (and have a bit of luck too probably). When I get back from holiday I’ll see if Keith would like at article on this and we can get a thread going. |
I'll look forward to your article. I have always maintained our biggest drawback is location. If you take a circular catchment area, to the east and west are fine, but south is the sea and north a low population, poor road links and virtually no rail links. How many large stadiums on the coast are there with similar issues. | | | |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 11:16 - Aug 15 with 1566 views | union_jack |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:54 - Aug 15 by Whiterockin |
I'll look forward to your article. I have always maintained our biggest drawback is location. If you take a circular catchment area, to the east and west are fine, but south is the sea and north a low population, poor road links and virtually no rail links. How many large stadiums on the coast are there with similar issues. |
Excellent point. | |
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| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 12:43 - Aug 15 with 1490 views | KeithHaynes |
| Swansea City : Forever a stepping stone with a massive warning for Michael Duff on 09:46 - Aug 15 by cadleigh |
All good points, but I still think the examples of Norwich, Arsenal and West Ham trump the Coventry one. It can be done if you try hard enough (and have a bit of luck too probably). When I get back from holiday I’ll see if Keith would like at article on this and we can get a thread going. |
Always happy to chat on positive additions to the website. | |
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