Sometimes there has to be a realistic approach to supporting your football club. As much as there has to be a realistic approach by those who run the football club you support. That’s where trust comes in between the two entities, and in the middle we see the manager and his coaching staff.

Russell Martin has presided over, potentially, the three worst home defeats the swans have suffered for years. Stoke we know about. The Reading game was a debacle of monumental standards in how not to defend, switch off and then leave it to others. Yesterday’s loss to Nottingham Forest was an unacceptable performance from the back to the front of the team. Some of the football played by Swansea City was incredibly good in the first half, but nailed on solid gold chances that Olivier Ntcham and Joel Piroe missed are unacceptable. I will add to that the opportunities within the Forest penalty area that were met by nobody in a white shirt were equally as bad. Joel Piroe and Jamie Paterson were nowhere to be seen and as was mentioned in the match report the Forest keeper, Samba, dealt with any cross easily and totally unchallenged. That isn’t good enough.

It’s lazy.

We know what Russell Martin demands from his team, dominant football play that creates chances and leads to winning games. We saw dominant football play yesterday, we saw at least five chances to score goals, and they were very good chances. The Joel Piroe goal aside the swans could have taken something from this game. Being a realistic supporter I saw that yesterday, I saw the chances missed by Piroe, Ntcham, Latibeaudiere and Manning. I saw shots at goal, and some great saves by the Forest keeper, and I saw a team that didn’t give up until the last second of the game.

Realistically that’s what I saw.

I also saw players out of possession not doing a job, Jamie Paterson had an exceptionally poor game reminiscent of his career, after his standards were set so high at the swans up until the end of November. Flynn Downes is a great player, but his aggression needs channeling, and he also needs to realise he has the ability to play further forwards and to carry the ball positively. He seems restricted in his thinking to me. Matt Grimes is a very similar player, however next week Downes won’t be available, and Martin will be forced in to additional thinking. The threat on the right from Ethan Laird disappeared when he left the pitch injured. His replacement just doesn’t play in that position.

The clear omission of any form of pace is killing Swansea City, an attacking player, dare I say a winger ? We all know they don’t grow on trees but the players ‘we know’ that could come to Swansea next month do not possess this skill. No pace whatsoever.

The defence has been the undoing of Swansea City this season. It has gone from a reliable solid system of defending to a list of comic strip events you would never have thought possible in any team. Let alone a positive one that relies on its system so much as the swans do. The past three games with an absent Jake Bidwell have been classic examples of this. More on missing players later.

The defending yesterday was at new levels of incompetence. The goalkeeper mistake, allowing the left hand side to be raided continually by opposition players with far more pace than the swans was never addressed. Nothing was done as the defence on that side of the pitch was exposed time and time again. Not a system switch or strategic change of the personnel or tactics, nothing. And Russell Martin takes the blame for that. However, he hasn’t got the players. That’s now completely evident.

And the reason why he hasn’t got players in certain positions is he has ignored them or completely dropped them from his thinking. Jake Bidwell, Liam Walsh, Jay Fulton, Brandon Cooper and Morgan Whittaker are all classic examples. I will exclude Liam Cullen as he has had more chances than any of the above. All players who couldn’t have been any worse than those in the pantomime performance yesterday. Whittaker’s exclusion, behaviour aside, is shocking. He would have made a difference yesterday, he has the ability, many see that. However, because he is off in January he is excluded. Then there’s Jay Fulton, he hasn’t even had a sniff in months, and didn’t appear in the B game in the week. There needs to be an explanation as to why Jay isn’t featuring. It isn’t good enough to say he is leaving in January, we know that, and his exclusion makes me as a fan very angry with no reasons why. Every other club includes players who are leaving or who have stated they want to leave, what makes us so different ?

At times Russell Martin seems to be doing a bit of nose snipping, managing rebel players by banning them or just giving up on them. There are too many anomalies that occur without explanation for it to be acceptable. We have a January window ahead of us that Russell Martin needs to act positively in, alongside Mark Allen and Julian Winter they now know what is required. However, the exclusion of certain players who could have made it better is amateurish without explanation. And unacceptable.

There are shouts from certain quarters questioning the ability of Martin and his coaching team, well, as was stated yesterday he is going nowhere, and it’s a waste of your time and effort to contemplate some form of change. It just isn’t going to occur. Those of us that can see what he is trying to do, albeit on a steep learning curve have accepted it, the club have invested in the vision and they accept it, so that just leaves the voices in the night.

It’s time for us all to be realistic. And accept the fact this is where we are at.

Photographs licensed from Reuters

tredwyn added 17:38 - Dec 12 It's nuts to even think of sacking the manager. You've got to give him a couple of seasons to show what he can do.. He comes over as a bit dogmatic and fonder of player he knows with a League one pedigree than ones who have proven competence in the Championship. But no-one's perfect and he plays a style the fans like so give him a chance.. Swansea's squad is not good enough for promotion and it wasn't last year. But Cooper knew how to work with what he had. At least he has an owner now who will back him in the market. Martin hasn't got that and will have to learn some of Cooper's pragmatism to cut his suit to suit his cloth..

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