Diamonds are forever? Or does Clement tinker with his middle men?
WHEN the team line-ups were announced at the Liberty Stadium at 2pm on Saturday it would be fair to say there was some surprise at the Swansea City line-up.
The return of club captain Leon Britton was a welcome alteration, but it was the system change that caught the eye.
Paul Clement had hinted he was pondering an alternative ahead of the clash against Stoke, with the assumption being that a move to 4-2-3-1 was on the cards.
But, with Wayne Routledge injured, the head coach elected to forego the use of wingers and installed a midfield diamond with a pair of strikers up top.
A 2-0 win followed to boost survival hopes, but can Clement call on this system over the remaining four games? Or will it be a case of horses for courses?
We assess the pluses and minuses ahead of the trip to Old Trafford this weekend... Midfield cover, Gylfi back at 10 Swansea have conceded the most goals of any Premier League side this season, and Clement has always been keen to protect his back four as much as possible. He has tended to use three midfielders in front of them, with Gylfi Sigurdsson and a winger playing behind a main striker.
Rather than lose that cover by going to 4-2-3-1, the diamond allowed Clement to keep three midfielders in front of his back four. With Britton at the base he was able to get some tempo into his side’s attacking play too, while Ki Sung-yueng and Tom Carroll racked up the yards either side of him.
It also meant he could move Sigurdsson back to his favoured number 10 role at the point of the diamond, and it was noticeable that he found more room than he had in several recent games as a result.
Interestingly, the diamond remained after Fernando Llorente’s removal, and Swansea actually had some attacking joy breaking from deep, as highlighted by chances for Carroll and Jordan Ayew during the closing stages. What about wingers? The weakness of the diamond is that there is a lack of width both in attack and defence. Stephen Kingsley and Kyle Naughton made the effort to get forward on the flanks when they could, particularly early on, but both were understandably mindful of having Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic up against them.
Jordan Ayew ran the channels well to try and help out, but Stoke began to figure it out after the break and had joy in the wide areas. This prompted Clement to remove Llorente and bring on Mike van der Hoorn to bolster his defence against the bombardment. A rare sighting of two up front For the majority of the last decade, Swansea have tended to operate with one striker playing through the middle and they have not had much joy when expanding that to a two.
For example, playing Llorente and Borja Baston together against Manchester United at the Liberty proved a flop. This was more successful. Greater variation up top The reason for that was that Llorente and Ayew’s natural inclinations complemented each other nicely.
Swansea could look to play direct to the Spaniard, put crosses into the box or look to him as an outlet or focal point. Ayew, meanwhile, looked to run in behind defenders into the wide channels and he had considerable joy against Erik Pieters for much of the afternoon.
It meant Swansea’s play was more varied than it has been during the recent poor run, it gave Stoke far more to think about and it actually allowed the hosts to stretch the game and have a bit more time on the ball in the middle of the park. Ayew worked tirelessly on that front all afternoon. Can it work over the rest of the season? Manchester United are up next and it is worth noting the diamond was effective against the Red Devils while Garry Monk was in charge of Swansea. On consecutive visits to the Liberty, the away side floundered. In the first of those games Monk started with the diamond, while the second of the 2-1