Last Chance Saloon for Martin ? Swansea City ride into town on Wednesday night against Stoke City, who are currently seventeenth in the table and fresh from their away victory over Blackburn, on the back of two of their, arguably, most inept performances in recent times.

Of course, it is not the defeats themselves that are the problem, look at Liverpool, and Manchester United, all teams can start badly and turn it around (Steve Cooper’s Nottingham Forest anyone ?) but the manner of the way in which the defeats and have come about the seeming, lack of direction and improvement which is testing the patience of the most loyal of Russel Martin’s devotees.

He had urged the fan base to ‘trust the process’ and truly believed that had it not been for a fluke Obafemi miss his team would have won the game against Rotherham (ignoring, of course, Rotherham’s gilt edged chances when they were one up) and the injury time madness against Millwall, we would be in a very healthy position, taking into account the (late) win against Blackpool.

That, of course, can be argued, and some displays did show some hope. However, what is an undeniable truth is that in all those games, the way in which Swansea play has long since been worked out by opposition managers to the extent where they openly start to mock our tactics. (The video Blackburn posted after the 3-0 home defeat as a prime example) The ‘heart in mouth’ passing around your own penalty area, and then grinding to a halt on your half way line does not make sense. Passing from the back, putting your team under pressure, may work, from time to time, it catches the opposition off guard, they will not know when you are going to attack, and suddenly from the ball being in the keeper’s hands, its past half way and the quick, passing will tire them out. Doing this every time, the same tactic, the same people and crucially, slowly, doesn’t.

A team cannot tire if they are resting in their half, waiting for the ball to passed back and forth, not troubling their goal. Players seem to be scared of making a mistake as could be seen by Cameron Congreve’s early substation yesterday. Are they scared of playing their natural game, of defying the plan for fear of not being a team player and seeing their place in the side ? Or have they been coached to play this style of play for so long that their natural game is no longer one that comes instinctively ?

To me that is a bit of a cop out for the players. Martin has to take responsibility for the current style of play. It is his baby, it is his total philosophy. However, the senior players need to have the guts to stand up to him and tell him it is not working. None of us know what goes on behind closed doors and it may well be that Grimes has done exactly this and told Martin it is not working. We do not know.

One this is clear though, something must (or should) change. In normal times, and with normal owners, then Martin would be on borrowed time. He would be told that it’s not working and that he has maybe till the end of September to get things right. These are not normal times. Martin has made it clear, and for this he must be praised, that there is no money in the kitty, players must be sold before anyone comes in, (even a loan) and that his task is to improve players and sell them for a profit, before adding that he also has been tasked to improve the league position from last season. He did add, very tellingly, that he will always be honest and that he is the only person from the club that is speaking publicly. That, in itself is remarkably candid and may be the sign of someone getting his shots in before or perhaps a man telling you the difficult position in which he finds himself.

The stark reality may well be that the club cannot afford to sack Martin and his backroom staff and then pay more money in getting another team in. More money would be spent from the almost bare kitty, which would be further diminished if we were to slip the relegation trapdoor come the end of the season. Sell Priore ? Fine We’d get, maybe 10 million. How do we replace him ? Who comes in ? Downse was supposed to be the golden hen that would enable us to bring in more players, that proved not to be correct, would selling, arguably our most important player be any different ?

Again, none of us know of the financial position in which we find ourselves, it may be that the owners are being prudent and protecting our long term financial interests balancing the hope of being promoted with the danger of losing more money through relegation ?

It may be.

Stoke has rarely been a happy hunting ground for Swansea, if things do not go well in mid week, then the atmosphere at home against QPR on Saturday may certainly turn into the ‘Long Goodbye’

Artwork by Swansea Independent