The Swansea Way

You are clutching at Spanish straws, amigo.

Or should that be Basque

That is open for interpretation. IMO, Man City, Newcastle and Spurs have all been better to watch. I also find Real Madrid better to watch than Barca (this season), and enjoy watching Germany more than Spain.

All better to watch than Arsenal that's for sure.

Lots of things sound great, hope they all work out, but I doubt it.

Maybe. Yet we're above one of them and about to go above another. It's not all about how you look.

There were no more doubters than on our home forum at the beginning of the year, but even the Welsh equivalents of HappyTed have come around, that we are watching something pretty special. Thanks for the support, though. As I said, I hope we give real hope to all fans of non Big Six clubs, that they can also do it, and to stop listening to their managers say they need money to fix it. They don't need money, they need to improve their scouting, there are plenty of technically gifted players out there, and given the right framework, they can do the same thing. Our two Welsh international defenders both came originally from non league football. Neil Taylor came from non league Wrexham, Ashley Williams also played two years of non league football at Hednesford United, and joined us from Stockport.

i dont agree with buffon's opinions on this topic either daikiwi, but why would you retort by mocking his club?

buffon didnt even deride the swansea team itself at all, he just argued against your points (and mine for that matter)

Bad choice of club to pick on. We operate within our financial means and play a good style of football, and we're 13 points ahead of you, so suck it.

It's okay, Paul, I know Buffy from way back, when we stood together in Bloc 5. Just a bit of banter mate. I actually followed Arsenal as my second club since 1971, coz you couldn't get Swans games here. Remember that double side like yesterday, Charlie George, George Graham, Bob Wilson, Pat Rice, John Radford etc. Wenger has been great at scouting young players, but has never really replaced the Fab Four, Vierra and Seaman. Arsenal were always strong at the back. Now it is their glaring weakness, that and the attitudes of Arshavin and Walcott.

We also have arguably the best scouting system going around, swansea would do well to get in touch for some tips, i hope they do as i love their style and arsene could help the wee club find its feet

get rodgers into our boardroom for a chat in the process :)paulm2012-03-21 22:59:55

True, but Wenger signed Vieira early in his career on the cheap. Koscielny is coming along well too.

That would be great just hope he doesn't go calling when Wenger inevitably takes up a "Director of Coaching " role.I guess I was also really hard on Arshavin and Walcott, as a frustrated former fan. I've become sick of these types of players, who take the massive money but never try harder than they need to. Both are massive talents, yet can't be bothered.

Very good piece on the swansea way here;

http://www.football365.com/f365-features/7614777/F365-Focus

Sums it all up pretty nicely

i normally detest F365...

I <3 F365.

This chest-beating over Swansea will get a reply some time next season. However...



Has Arsenal's scouting system recovered from its crisis? I don't feel qualified to speak on world football, but Newcastle has England's best scouting system at the moment.

Fair point

Ba, Tiote, Cabaye, Collocini, Enrique (pity he left for a worse side) and Krul have been such good value

Arsenal have sustained good buying for a number of seasons now, if newcastle follow suit they might close the gap
(that's a trademark stripes wink right there)

Of course it was West Ham who brought Ba to England in the first place.

Stoke bought him to england first, he failed a medical there... westham rolled the dice, the rest is history, his dodgy knee seems fine these days!

Swings and roundabouts. Mercenary midget Owen was always injured at SJP, then moves to OT and suddenly becomes fit again.

Little f*cker.

Really? Let's compare:

'09 Season

Arsenal

Ramsey (4.8 million)
Nasri (12 million)
Silvestre (750k)
Arshavin (15 million)

Newcastle

Jonas (2 million)
Guthrie (2.5 million)
Bassong (1.8 million)
Coloccini (10 million)
Xisco (5.7 million)
Lovenkrands (Free)
Nolan (4 million)
R. Taylor (6 million less than what N'Zogbia is worth)

Arshavin isn't quite a flop, but he hasn't really been value for money. Nasri was an excellent, if not inspired, acquisition. Ramsey was a good buy. Newcastle spent rather less and acquired less quality, though the investment in Coloccini has come good.

The Gunners' reputation allowed them to make bigger signings, but in terms of scouting, this one goes to the Toon. Where was Arsenal's inspired buy to weigh against the effective trade of N'Zogbia for Jonas, R. Taylor, Guthrie and Bassong?

'10 season

Arsenal

Vermaelen (10.1 million)
Sol Campbell (free)

Newcastle

Pancrate (free)
D. Simpson (750k)
Routledge (1 million)
Williamson (1 million)
Leon Best (unknown)

For obvious reasons, I will not pan the purchase of Sol Campbell. Vermaelen was a great buy, but stopping off to buy Ajax's best players is an old trick. Williamson and Simpson were superb bargain signings.

Shouldn't Arsenal have won hands-down on scouting during Newcastle's relegation season? They didn't. Once again, this is just the ability of a big club to attract known quantities.

'11 season

Arsenal

Chamakh (free)
Koscielny (8.5 million)
Squillaci (3.5 million)
Lehman (free)

Newcastle

Perch (1.5 million)
Gosling (free)
Sol Campbell (free)
Tiote (3.5 million)
Ben Arfa (7 million)
Kuqi (free)

Same money spent, both clubs acquire a promising youngster and an old warhorse on a free. But you'd be daft if you think the results were the same.

'12 season

Arsenal

Jenkinson (1 million)
Gervinho (10.5 million)
Oxlade-Chamberlain (12 million)
J Campbell (900k)
Park Chu-Young (1.8 million)
Santos (6.2 million)
Mertesacker (8 million)
Arteta (10 million)

Newcastle

Abeid (free)
Cabaye (4.3 million)
Ba (free)
Marveaux (free)
Obertan (3.25 million)
Santon (5 million)
Elliot (300k)
Cisse (10 million)

Arsenal's "crisis season". But actually, it's only the scale of spending that differs from past years.

Surprised you have not been inundated with comments from Arsenal supporters?

I would comment. But I'm not even sure what we're supposed to be arguing about.

I see plenty of great bargains in the newcastle lists, yet you're still far behind us and were even in the championship in the very small period you've analysed. Newcastle's purchases were obviously no where near as successful as you seem to believe.

The 'success' we've had in that period (quotation marks as I only consider it success when compared to newcastle) is due to our scouting over a longer period than that, and not necessarily down to reputation e.g. Song - free, Sagna - 6mil, Szczesny - 500k, van persie - 2.5 mil, (some current players bought prior to '09 that newcastle could have bought with ease, had their scouting system identified them).

Like i said, successful scouting, yes, but until you're in touching distance of us the argument is fairly weak.

Also, the 'effective' trade of n'zogbia for others in '09 gets smashed by our 'effective' trade that same season. Selling adebayor and toure funded all our acquisitions, plus a new contract/payrise for fabregas (which allowed for his sale to barca a couple of seasons later, rather than him leaving on a free), and we had cash to spare as well. Although commendable, your research didn't quite extend far enough there...

Now about that swansea... :)

paulm2012-03-27 23:17:32

So horribly off topic, but lets recap:

Funny that since this thread was created i don't think Swansea have earned a single point.

Pardew and Newcastle probably deserve more plaudits than this lot for what they've achieved this season.

+ 1

I don't think that Swansea should be faulted for being a smaller club. Realistic expectations for the both clubs have been exceeded. i.e. Newcastle expected a top-half finish, while Swansea expected to scramble out of the relegation places. Pardew says that his squad are a year ahead of schedule, while Rodgers has a good base for next season.

love this:

Quote Of The Day
"He would maybe say that he played with me" - Michael Laudrup responds to being asked 'You played with Pep Guardiola at Barcelona...'

And the comments in this thread are pretty funny when you look at newcastle and swansea's performances this season.

Pardew a year ahead of schedule bahahahahaha Stripes came and went with his fortunes it seems...

That 2nd goal in injury time goal is massive.

Psychologically it's huge. A two goal win for Chelsea is well within reason, a 3 goal win is just way harder.

Great result for Swansea, but that ball boy incident took the gloss off it for me. That kinda stuff is just not cricket.

The 'boy' looked about 18 to be honest and was being a right little shit.

The kid will look back at that in 5 years and feel completely embarassed.

He's gone from 240 followers on twitter to 70,000 in one day. Crazy.

I can barely imagine what his timeline looks like!!

What has been the reaction from Swans fans to the ball boy?

 

Will they be making a statue of him (he sure earned his own Oscar), hiding him from the Russian Mafia, or what?

Possibly the best football laugh I've had in a decade...