Proud of the boys today.

A lot will be said in the coming days about this game and after 45mins I was thinking our time in this league might be coming to a close, how wrong I was.

Everything we fans hoped for finally happened in the 2nd half ,we showed the balls and the fight to want to be here and we got back to basics by controlling the ball and totally dominating the opposition.

I am devastated with the final score and I feel that we have been conned out of the win, the referee had a shocker today, letting them time waste freely yet booking our lads when they returned the favour, re taking the corner that led to a the penalty was yet another woeful decision.

Im ****ing gutted for the players ,totally gutted for them.

Bony showed why he is worth the money, if you play to his strengths he will get goals ,id like to think this was only a point but it could be the best point of recent weeks,we have set a bench mark and we need to maintain it now.

Laudrup has stumbled upon our best 11 and it doesn't include JDG, ive stuck up for him many times but today was the final straw for me, the others that need bench time are chico and ben davies.

Ive argued with many on here about his defensive weakness(ben) it is really starting to kill us now,taylor offers less going forward but keeps us tight at the back and that's any defenders primary job , Laudrup needs to get back to basics and I feel this performance was in spite of him not because of him.

We need to stick to the same basic team and take that team spirit onto the next match.

I was very worried about us at half time but after the crazy 96th minute I feel we have gained what was missing, passion,comitment and passing .

Stoke were a disgrace to football yet again and it was nice to see Bony roughing up their defenders. there were a lot of positives to take from the game, im totally gutted we only drew and lets be honest the ref decided the points today .

The players desevere respect for today but chico needs to man up bigtime, he is fast becoming the biggest joke in prem football and to be honest im embarrassed to have him wear our shirt when he does things like that .

Ben davies needs to learn how to defend otherwise every game we will get pegged back by silly goals which is pretty much how all of goals have been conceded .

Lets remember it takes great heart to come back from 0-2 down so lets try and focus on the positive aspects and build from there.

One final mention again about Bony, I am so ****ing happy for the lad, his goal scoring record is actually pretty immense when you consider his minutes on the field.

Thank god he played 90 mins because we don't have anybody like him in and around the penalty area, I dedicate the draw to him because he kept banging away at those dirty centre halfs all game and was still happy to come back for more.

Well done Swans

 

While we saw glimpse's of the old Swansea, it's still a results game, and we are shooting ourselves in the foot far too much this season, not happy with the Jekyll and Hyde we play in the two halves of our games this season, so if you don't mind, I'll will leave out any fan fair just yet, lets see what happens after the break, we really need to get our form back, as all we could do today was draw with a very poor Stoke!...................






2 points off the drop zone??

 

Hey Norway, welcome to the dark side re JDG Come sit next to me, I saved you a seat

Although will say think being a bit harsh on Ben, he slipped for the first goal, that's just unlucky.

But also agree that we played well today, I even felt we played well first half, but wasn't quite getting the rub of the green, and Bony looked a tad rusty at getting some decent service, said to my bro at half time, Bony will score, and score he did

 

I agree, we showed some balls to come back and it's heartbreaking to only get a draw. Where we deserved all three, Stoke did nothing, we gifted them the two goals. These players ned to get some studs put in there boots.

I can take the two Euorpa league draws after being in winning positions, but that was our own undoing, todays decision was by an incompetent ref.

Chico is getting on my tits with his theatrics, I'd kick the ****er round the car park and drag him round by his bloody ponytail, CUT it out your making our club a laughing stock. Best send Huw down to have a word and dock is pay check for being a knob.

Bony showed how good a player he is, should have had one in the first half, but made amends in the second half.

Fustrate as **** as we would have climbed the table nicely, with a win. The results this weekend have been crazy, hence why it is a bitter pill to swallow only getting a point. Now we have to take the three points off Fulham.

 

Swanselona, ive been in and out with JDG since he came here as Ivor will testify. But today was a game where every swinging dick on the field needed to be 100% totally up for the battle, even with the crowd on him he didn't wnt to make a tackle that mattered , I look at everything as a sliding scale, as soon as the good out weighs the bad and vice cersa a player gets an east ride with me

Ben davies is no good at defending, he never has been and when he stops offering us anything going forward he just becomes a liability ,today he offered nothing going forward and was poor defencively yet again. the problem with defenders is that mistakes cost goals,thats the harsh truth but until he can defend properly goals will always come from his side of the field.

Dragon, I know the kind of things your referring to RE Laudrup and the club, as ive said elsewhere this point was in spite of him as opposed of because of him, there is no getting away from the fact that the lack of training is to blame and that's where I think we are playing a dangerous game with our prem survival .

The club are no doubt starting to think the same .

The other problem is how Bony has scored so many goals and played so few minutes,it kind of makes a mockery of certain things said in the press, the other problem here is how Bony is changing his game to fit in with us when we should be changing our game to fit in with him.

A few of his lay offs were straight from the training ground but last season he was turning and shooting with those not passing them across the area.

Im really proud of the players though and hope this will be a catalyst for them, the team needs to now stay within the same first 11/12 shelvey for JDG perhaps and id keep giving lamar minutes too .

From tears to glory and back to tears again but what can you do when you get such rotten luck? something we are short supply of recently

 

Dragon how many points off the drop zone did we finish last season and the season before ?

after 11 games we should be doing a bit better but not much better , the euro league is playing a part I think

Now that Bony is being played the correct way by default I might add things will start looking up , michu being out may be just what we need

 

the 2nd half reaction was superb but tbh we didnt play badly 1st half just couldnt make our chances count like they did. half time i was cursing our lack of cutting edge so its a huge relief that we turned it around and im particularly pleased for Bony. my stream went down for the corner and when i got it back it was a penalty - i couldnt effing believe it! by all accounts we were robbed but although im gutted we dropped the points im also very proud of the boys today

 

I think Bony has struggled to date due to a lack of fitness, and has been playing catch up since missing pre-season....and I think ML would have wanted pt play him more given different circumstances. Anyway, very pleased to see a solid 90 mins from him today as well as 2 goals. His movement for both was excellent, especially the 2nd.

I'm not sure I agree with the comment that the performance was despite and not because of ML. Who knows what he said at half time, because they certainly seemed more motivated, and the substitutions we're spot on. It's very frustrating for everyone at the moment because we could quite easily be 5-6 points better off at this stage, and we are not....although we are not tracking too far behind last season.

The referee today was an utter c..k and should be pulled up by the FA, but he won't. On top of that, I also had to deal with Barry the a-hole Horne as commentator....god he is an irritating piece of c..p.

Anyway, Fulham is now a big game and we need a win to get some distance between us and the bottom 3. If we don't, i won't be surprised to see HJ step in and take action (which is not what I want btw)

 

Oh, and I agree that Chico needs to stop messing around.....a ballerina on ice is what the commentator called it. He's meant to be a tough, no nonsense center back, so he should act like it

 

Maybe so jack pa .

Im not arguing about the subs more about the way the boys dug in and got into their way of playing the game, I felt that we just decided to play our game and it looked far more natural for 80mins today than it has done for a while.

I think there can be great strength drawn from this. We need a confident Bony on the field and the more he plays the more the other players adjust to his game , it could work to our advantage because playing with Michu in the team has been one dimensional of late .

 

Agreed. As others have said, maybe Michu being out will benefit us and allow Bony to stamp his own style into our game. It looked very good at times today but we need 90 minutes not 45. I don't think we are far off at the moment and when we do click, some team will get a thumping.

 

I thought that JDG was one of the key drivers of the second half come back. We skipped a couple of beats when he went off for Shelvey and had to adjust - lost a few minutes of momentum there not to mention our corners were not as good, nor was Shelvey's free kick, which was positioned ideally for JDG. Dyer also looked a lot sharper when he came on - not sure whether that was because of the rest, the inferior opposition in Stoke, or the umbrage at riding the bench.

 

probably a bit of everything with Dyer

Some of the players looked distraught after the game, it was nice to see the fight and pride but im so pissed off at the ****e ref, glad I wasn't in the stadium I think I would have run onto the firld and twatted him !

 

I'm glad I lost my stream cause I can't stand Barry Horne, never has nothing good to say about us, he a tool of the highest order. So glad to then listen to a Danish commentary (thanks do the link), so much better.

Chico is infuriating with his play acting, god man up ffs. Dyer did look lively and Shelvey also looked like he wanted it after coming on. This might be the catalyst for our season, the lads will be well pissed off and I'm sure they will want to put this right against Fulham.

The fustrating part as well is that with the way this weekends results have gone, a lot have teams have now closed in on us.

Onwards and Upwards.

 

From a neutrals point of view it was an entertaining game. From a bottom club like stokes view then they could not believe their luck going 2-0 up before half time, From our point of view we were the same as always with plenty of possession but little execution compared to the amount of chances we were getting....If we were playing a better team then we would not have had the same amount of chances thats for sure. We played better when dyer and shelvey came on and you could sense that we will score before long and while we were pressing you could not be concerned that stoke could get another off the break and that would have been game over. we huffed and we puffed to get the equalizer but the pace was slow and stoke were absolutely there for the taking as they were the worst side to play at the liberty for some time. We were our own worst enemy at times throwing the game away and right at the end in our penalty area where we should not have been anywhere near we go and blow it giving a penalty away...unbelievable whether it was a penalty or not, We gave them the chance...Another two points dropped and another disappointing result at home...alarm bells ringing..

 

I think the game showed a couple of things - we look like a team that's lost its mojo. Lethargic and ponderous with an achilles heel defence.

However it also showed that when our players up their game (in particular the tempo) they are a match for anyone. If we play like we did second half we can beat anyone and I do mean anyone - in the League.

Tremendous character shown by them today and kudos to every single one of them. The pen at the end was just one of those things that happen in football I'm afraid.

 

A bit like when they went to Old Trafford and nearly turned Man U over a fortnight ago?

 

nearly being the operative word.... ..excuses all the time come and try a bit of reality for a change..

 

Why are people saying stoke are a bottom club? MH is turning them into a decent outfit. Would have won a few more games this year if they had a Bony in their side.

 

I did not expect stoke to be where they are this season to be honest but they are and we could not beat even them and had to play catch up. Alarm bells are ringing in Huw's ears for sure now after a few home truths by him to laudrup, his staff and the players last week. Another few results like this and huw will sack laudrup i can see it now. two wins at home is not good enough by anyones standard...