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Swansea vs AFC | Proof Is In The Pudding

Swansea City FC welcomed Arsenal FC to the liberty stadium for a mouth watering, ‘total football’ encounter. Ninety four minutes of passing football did not disappoint.

Flowing First

Arsenal started off on the front foot creating the early openings and broke the deadlock in the fifth minute. The most lethal striker in England over the whole of 2011 was left totally unmarked by Caulker. Arshavin found Van Persie, standing alone in the inside right channel, who drove into the box and crashed the ball inside the near post to put Arsenal ahead. It took a short while for Swansea to settle down, but after that they dominated the game. Dyer collected the ball in the 18 yard box and was deemed to have been fouled by Ramsey. Sinclair dispatched the penalty with precision to level the scores with sixteen minutes gone.

While analysing I checked the possession stats and Swansea had an incredible 64%, while my colleague doing Arsenal mentioned 67% at one point, during the first 30 minutes or so. He was shocked that for the first time in many Arsenal games, he had some time on his hands to recheck some of his analysis; Swansea ended the half with 61.2% possession.

Spectacular Second

Swansea took the lead in the second half and the goal was initiated by Allen, stealing the ball off Ramsey – another mistake by the Arsenal midfielder. Allen was then allowed to run at the goal, just left of centre, and at the edge of the box he played the ball into Dyer on the right. Dyer took a touch and smashed the ball through the smallest of gaps between the Arsenal players. Arsenal brought the game level in the sixty-ninth minute with Djourou playing a through ball from deep for Walcott, who dinked the ball over Vorm.

Almost straight from the kick off Swansea regained possession and Sigurdsson slid a 40 yard through ball up the right hand side. Graham timed his run to perfection, and curled the ball across Szczesney’s body into the bottom corner. Swansea relinquished possession and defended as a unit towards the end of the game, but still managed 55.3% over 94 minutes.

Global Glorification

I have watched Swansea City and analysed them every week, and I am forever singing their praises, telling people at work and elsewhere, what an incredible outfit they really are. The appraisals are usually shrugged off as, ‘yes they are good, but not THAT good’.

This was the chance for Swansea to show the world how good they really are and increase their status as a side to be reckoned with. By all accounts and stats they out-shone Arsenal, beating them at their own game.

Special Statistics

Swansea completed 424 out of 527 passes while Arsenal completed 337 out of 428 passes (Swansea completed almost as many passes as Arsenal attempted in the whole game). This means that Swansea attempted 5.5 passes a minute and 10 passes for every minute they were in possession. The ball was actually in play for an incredible 69 minutes, normally this is around the 50 minute mark, rarely going above 60 minutes. Therefore Swansea had the ball for 39 minutes and attempted 13 passes per minute (over 1 pass every 5 seconds). Also the ground passes completed by Swansea, excluding headers, high passes and throw-ins, totalled 380.

Nine years to this weekend, Swansea City were five points behind Exeter City at the bottom of the Football League. Now they are the 4th highest ranked team in the Premier League possession charts, and the 6th most accurately passing side in Europe (ahead of Manchester United and Arsenal); whilst sitting 10th in the Premier League.

Every week I tell people they have to watch Swansea play, and now they know why that is!

Manraj
Manrajhttp://footy-mad-manuk.blogspot.com/
Opta International, European & Official Swansea FC analyst. MSc Sports Performance analysis. BSc Astrophysics. Youth Football Coach
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