by Guest Sun Apr 08, 2012 11:16 am
Rei Andros wrote: James wrote:Keeping the ball is a much more effective way of not losing.
Martinez 2008-2009 - 40 goals scored, 22 goals conceded - 8th place finish
Sousa 2009-2010 - 21 goals scored, 12 goals conceded - 7th place finish
Rodgers 2010-2011 - 41 goals scores, 11 goals conceded - 3rd place finish
These are home statistics, when a team is supposed to be more attacking. Looking at the starts alone will tell you Martinez played more open and risky football, whereas as we know, Rodgers plays risk free boring football.
Please bear in mind Sinclair scored 19 goals in the season Rodgers managed, the majority at home and without them the goals tally would be around 30 and the fact this was Swansea's third see in the 2nd tier.
I'm not going to pretend like I know much about the Championship, but I'm not sure how you can form that argument from the raw stats alone. All I see is that Swansea had a worse defense at home in 08/09 than in 10/11. Projecting that having Rodgers in 08/09 would have led to Swansea scoring less goals, and that having Martinez in 10/11 would have produced more goals is a murky area.
Mentioning Sinclair's goal-scoring doesn't clarify it any further. Jason Scotland scored 21 for Swansea under Martinez. In percentages, it means that he scored 60% at home compared to Sinclair's 80% at home. It looks like a big gap until you see that it's 13 at home for Scotland, and 15 at home for Sinclair.
Even the fact that Swansea had two years of experience in the Championship when Rodgers was appointed is a bit of a red herring. There is no direct correlation between time spent in a league and performance. Case in point: Swansea are in 14th place and Wigan in 18th in the Premier League or Southampton are top of the Championship.
Presenting an argument based on the difference in strength between the two squads would have been much more effective. Then you have to construct a relationship between depth and home performances while taking into consideration numerous other factors like injuries, form, the strength of other teams etc.
And that's even without looking at the away records (Martinez's Swansea was slightly better in this respect).
Again, I am somewhat speaking from a weak position here since I never saw Swansea play in the Championship, but I think your dislike of Swansea's football under Rodgers is clouding your vision. Even though Martinez and Sousa established a foundation for Rodgers to build the house on, it still could have gone completely wrong - as we've seen so many times before in football. You have to give him some credit for what he has done.
The difference between Scotland and Sinclair is that Scotland is a striker, his job is to score goals. If you've seen him play you'll know how bad he actually is, for him to score there needed to be good team play.
Sinclair on the other hand is a winger with the majority of his game based around his own selfishness. If they used Routledge and Dyer (Both started against Newcastle) I highly doubt Swansea would have made their way into the playoffs. I think it is fair to say, replace Jason Scotland with another Championship striker that scores goals (there are plenty of them) and Martinez would have guided them to a position just as good as he did.
There may be no direct correlation but I can provide more examples of teams spending extra seasons in the Championship before going up. Ignoring Swansea, we have Stoke, Hull City, Burnley, Blackpool in recent years. All teams who either came from the 3rd tier or embarked upon a new era in the league which propelled them up. As for Swansea, we've seen the past few seasons promoted teams tend to do ok in the first season. Burnley had a superb start, ended up being relegated the same season though just, Hull did great at the start of theirs, relegated 2nd season, Blackpool great start, faded and relegated.
My point at the end of all of this was that Martinez sets his teams up to play more attractive football, they pass the ball about quickly and take risks. Swansea don't, they sit patiently in what I class as the most defensive way of playing football. He can have credit for his Premier League season, but I believe it was the work of Sousa and his boring team that gave Rodgers a great defensive platform to start with.
I'm still fairly positive they'll go down next season, they'll be found out because we all know they'll play exactly the same way.
And that's even without looking at the away records (Martinez's Swansea was slightly better in this respect).
