Wembley target for Clucas
SAM Clucas wants Swansea City to take a major step forward against Tottenham to give themselves the best possible chance of making it a hat-trick of memorable triumphs at Wembley.
Since the home of English football was redeveloped, the Swans have been there twice and won twice as they took the spoils in the 2011 Championship play-off final and the 2013 League Cup final.
Few are giving Paul Clement’s men hope of making it three from three when they face a Tottenham side who have hit their stride with victory over Borussia Dortmund.
“If we make sure we get right some of the things we got wrong (against Newcastle), we believe we can get a result,” said Clucas.
STYLE remains a key consideration for many football fans, but it will be matters related to substance that Paul Clement will be demanding as a minimum requirement from his Swansea City side when they face a daunting assignment against Tottenham at Wembley today.
The Swans head coach was calm, but clear, in his withering assessment of last weekend’s display against Newcastle, and did not spare himself when it came to apportioning blame.
His side were ponderous, sluggish in possession and unable to break down an obdurate Newcastle side.
But, perhaps above all other factors, Clement felt the fundamentals of the desire to win every personal battle and put the extra miles in for the benefit of the team were not what they should have been.
Examining the video nasty of the Magpies game will surely have left them in no doubt about what is expected of them at Wembley, a place where Swansea are two from two after their play-off and League Cup triumphs.
It picks up on a theme from preseason where Clement said on a number of occasions that his players were not physically where he expected them to be. In his words they were “behind”.
That looks to have carried over into the season proper. While Clement admits the manner of games can skew statistics such as distance covered and distance of sprints, the figures this campaign have been down on what had been the norm last term.
Add in the number of individual duels and second balls given up against Newcastle, and the head coach has a clear message of what he expects to see against Harry Kane, Christian Eriksen et al.
“There were lots of things that weren’t right in that game against Newcastle,” said Clement.
“Some of the fundamentals weren’t there. The first and second balls... we’ve got clip after clip after clip which we’ve shown to the players.
“We got the first contact, but more often than not the second ball ended up with them and that’s a basic of the game we need to get right.
“Our physical output could be higher, too. Some of the physical statistics we were achieving at the end of last season were much better than what we’ve had so far this season, so that’s got to improve.
“The cohesiveness of the team and those movements wasn’t quite there and, for me, that’s understandable because we’ve got new players.
“That will come, but the other things have to be there now.
“Things like distance covered, most importantly, the distance covered at speed. Some of those things are impacted on with the tactics of a game, but, in general, they are lower than what we are capable of. So we’ve got to be better.”
Such parameters will come into sharp focus against Tottenham given the likelihood that Swansea are likely to find themselves with plenty of defending to do and spend a lot of time without the ball.
The Swans have never won an away league game against Spurs, and
the two meetings last season led to an awful lot of soul-searching, albeit for very different reasons.
The 5-0 thumping at White Hart Lane – equalling Swansea’s worst Premier League defeat – would prove to be emblematic of much of what was to follow in December, while the 3-1 loss at the Liberty saw the hosts lead until the 88th minute, only to be stunned by three quick-fire goals.
Clement certainly hasn’t forgotten the hurt of that March loss, and admits it will serve as a reminder of the effort that will be needed to get anything from a challenging fixture.
It will only take a momentary loss of concentration or drop in intensity for the visitors to be punished.
“We all know we must improve,” said Clement.
“It will be very different to the Newcastle game, where they’re kind of in that low block, they’re very compact and we’re trying to break them down.
“There wasn’t so much space, so with the physical statistics it’s normal that they’re going to be a bit lower.
“This game, you’re probably going to have less of the ball than they have, defending more than they are and we’ve got to put the distance in, that’s for sure.
“We have memories of last season which are good and bad, but the memory of that game against them at the Liberty is not a particularly good one.
“But that was also a big learning experience for everybody.
“You look at how well we did for such long periods. We took our chance on a counter, defended resiliently, worked so hard physically and then we get to the 88th minute and it turns against us.
“Around that time there was also the PSG v Barcelona game where it was 88 minutes and Barca were losing and scored three goals.
“Tottenham did it to us and scored three goals in that period. It just shows how concentrated you have to be at this level of football.”