NEW ERA IS STILL OUT OF REACH AS SWANS NEED TIME
IT felt like the start of something new for Swansea City.
But, as a result, Paul Clement faces a new challenge. Namely how to find the way to bring the best out of this new-look side.
Because it was obvious as Swansea tasted defeat for the second time in two home fixtures that this wasn’t it.
Though there are arguments that Swansea ended the transfer window still shy of a few options, the summer business closed with a sense that the team had enough quality in enough positions for the side to take a new step forward.
No Gylfi Sigurdsson, no Fernando Llorente, but no doubt that the additions made had fuelled optimism.
A glance at the team selected for this first game after the closure of the window and all that goes with it gave good context to why there was a buzz of excitement from supporters not felt for some time. The fans felt it, the manager felt it. It’s perhaps why Clement was so scathing in his assessment of the defeat to a Jamaal Lascelles header that undermined all that hope.
The manager was measured in his words, but the message was clearly stinging: not good enough.
Not good enough individually, not good enough collectively which Clement, to his credit, quickly insisted he was “at the head of”.
And although he admitted to being baffled as to how and why Swansea managed to slip to such a disappointing, disjointed, ponderous display, he will know that a look at how to best utilise what he’s got will be needed before the trip to Wembley based Tottenham next weekend.
Because, while it may be taking it to the extreme, the nature of this performance to an opportunist Newcastle team brought to mind of the old Morecambe and Wise joke about playing all the right notes just not in the right order.
The signings – such as Euro 2016 sensation Renato Sanches – and the players who performed consistently well to ease away from relegation problems at the end of last season, have enough about them to be better than this.
But the feeling of a new era, the new start after the phoney war Swansea came out of with four points before completing their summer dealing, was quickly undone with a performance that just wasn’t right from Swansea.
Clement opted for a diamond but did not find any quality wide where, without wingers, the full-backs didn’t stretch Newcastle’s narrow, compact approach to proceedings.
The four in the midfield didn’t look balanced or best suited to their roles, at least not here. Sam Clucas, while neat and tidy, looked a little wasted at the base with Roque Mesa still deemed not ready. Tom Carroll did not have enough of an attacking impact. Leroy Fer couldn’t grab the game either at No.10, or slightly wide. Then there was Sanches who looked exactly what he is: a player of brilliant talent but lacking in the confidence or conviction and fitness that comes from games, games he has missed for the past year while trying to make a breakthrough at Bayern.
The 20-year-old – who, in the words of Clement, “did some good things, did some not so good things” – will show his true self in time. As will Wilfried Bony, who replaced him and hinted at some of the interplay that was as important as his finishing in his last spell here, before fading as he failed to get service from an unimaginative midfield beneath him.
Tammy Abraham was also starved, trying his best to work space but rarely finding it, and then finding Lascelles clearing off the line when Fer did free him the once and he skilfully