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Reply | Swans Scores this Season
at 20:23 2 Nov 2026
Don’t get me wrong, they could both do it. They just wouldn’t be smashing goals in from all angles on both feet like Vipotnik was last season.
The way Matos plays though, albeit with limited evidence on Stewart, seems to suit both him and Idah better.
Harsh on Vipotnik, but no Swans fan should be disappointed in how we are playing. |
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Reply | Swans Scores this Season
at 16:05 2 Nov 2026
The way we play is better suited to Idah and Stewart. Vipotnik is the best about at what he does, but Matos wants his strikers drifting wide and creating gaps for teammates to exploit.
If we want a striker to run the central channel and try to feed him on the edge of the box, the other two don’t get near him.
I’m surprised he didn’t go in the summer, he must have had offers from bigger clubs. |
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Reply | Swans Scores this Season
at 15:48 2 Nov 2026
Yes, it’s effectively just are we a better team with Vipotnik, Idah or Stewart up front. Who actually scores the goals is irrelevant. |
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Reply | Is Jay Fulton undroppable ?
at 20:12 1 Nov 2026
Not undroppable, but arguably the perfect player to put inbetween a back four that loves to get forward and Eustaquio. |
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Reply | Swans Scores this Season
at 16:25 1 Nov 2026
It’s not really about which of our strikers score most.
My opinion, Vipotnik would score more than either of the others given equal game time, but we’d score more as a team with Idah or Stewart on the pitch.
As much as Fulton is a beneficiary of the way Matos has us playing this season, Vipotnik is a victim of it. |
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Reply | Swansea City v Blackburn Rovers : Match Thread
at 13:09 1 Nov 2026
An out and out creative option only works in this system if they also do all the pressing and dirty work Widdel/Stamenic/Franco do on top of unlocking defences. I’d assume a player that complete would be hard for us to get/keep.
If they don’t, the flair isn’t worth losing control of midfield for. It’s not too dissimilar to playing Idah and Vipotnik together and wondering why neither of them are as involved as when they play alone.
To be honest, Eustaquio makes us tick. If he’s in there, I’m happy with any combination of Fulton, Stamenic and Franco/Widdell. If one of the last two start, the other replaces them after an hour or so. |
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Reply | Swansea City v Blackburn Rovers : Match Thread
at 10:09 1 Nov 2026
In fairness, you have and I’d say he’s more than consistently decent now. I thought he was our best player yesterday amid some serious competition.
It’s just taken the right manager to play him to his strengths and not put him in situations that don’t suit him.
As it happens, exactly the same has happened to Grimes. Two good players, not a good partnership. |
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Reply | Goals ? The answer is staring Matos straight in the face
at 09:59 1 Nov 2026
What happened there? He was stripped and ready to come on. As you say, ideal scenario for him.
I get that it was also ideal for Key, but surely there was an option to give them both a run out. Could easily have left Idah on the bench. |
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Reply | Goals ? The answer is staring Matos straight in the face
at 09:21 1 Nov 2026
Plus we don’t get the ball near the box as much.
If we go two up front, even if we play a specialist 10 to an extent, we either have to give up width or control of midfield. I don’t think either is worth it. |
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Reply | Goals ? The answer is staring Matos straight in the face
at 08:57 1 Nov 2026
Yes, as the game was won, quite likely he just wanted to give them both a run out before Tuesday.
As a combination, I just don’t think it’s worth giving up a midfielder for. They were both less involved (in the CF position) than they are up front alone. It was the same against West Ham. Vipotnik was going wider than he usually does to try to get attacks going. |
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Reply | Goals ? The answer is staring Matos straight in the face
at 08:33 1 Nov 2026
I thought lt he did really well. Lot of similarities to Idah for me. Drags people all over the place and makes gaps for us to exploit, even if it does mean he’s not always there when we’re in a crossing position. If he can stay fit he’s going to be a real handful.
Can we put the Idah and Vipotnik together thing to bed now though? Either of them up front on their own, great. Both at the same time and we lose a midfielder and they both get starved of service. |
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Reply | Swansea City v Blackburn Rovers : Match Thread
at 08:26 1 Nov 2026
Agree with everyone saying Fulton was our MOM. He’s having his best season by far and is among our best players every game.
Matos is probably the first manager to allow him to just play to his strengths every game. Have to admit I always rated him as a combative midfielder but underestimated his ability to constantly be in the right place to snuff out attacks before they start.
I thought he’d be phased out two years ago. Turns out he just needed the right manager. |
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Reply | Did history just repeat itself with Michu and Vipotnik?
at 20:35 28 Oct 2026
One of the biggest criticisms is that we’re not getting results against promotion contenders and most of our points come against the weaker teams.
So why would we stop doing what has clearly been working against the weaker teams? |
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Reply | Did history just repeat itself with Michu and Vipotnik?
at 19:49 28 Oct 2026
It’s great to say we need more creativity, but then we need to look at what we forego to get that.
It would be quite a rational argument with four full defenders, a protective midfielder and the fullbacks only got forward ‘occasionally’. If people genuinely think that’s the case, it may be worth paying attention to how Tymon and Lissah position themselves on Saturday, or are we somehow assuming it’s a conventional back four?
I get QPR was horrible, but you’d honestly think we’ve been playing Michael Duff football and propping the league up from some of the comments. |
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Reply | Swans defender Stephen Welsh : Is exhaustion playing a part ?
at 14:27 28 Oct 2026
Yes and you could wake Stephen Welsh up at four in the morning, after a three day bender, kickoff half an hour later and he’d easily be the best player on the pitch in those games.
However, being even slightly off the boil against elite footballers is going to result in making mistakes, conceding chances and losing games. |
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Reply | Swans defender Stephen Welsh : Is exhaustion playing a part ?
at 13:59 28 Oct 2026
And there it is.
The thing that people aren’t grasping is the Yorkshire miners weren’t playing to the standard or intensity Championship players do. Any of them came in for Welsh after night shift and they’d have a really tough time |
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Reply | Swans defender Stephen Welsh : Is exhaustion playing a part ?
at 13:45 28 Oct 2026
It’s not normal person fatigue and exhaustion, it’s being half a second too slow to react or not picking out the right pass because you’ve switched off mentally for an instant.
It needs a better description than exhaustion, because every time it happens you’ll get someone saying they did 50 hour weeks at British Steel and still played twice on the weekend. |
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Reply | Swans defender Stephen Welsh : Is exhaustion playing a part ?
at 12:56 28 Oct 2026
Exhausted and fatigued are relative and probably aren’t the best descriptions.
If you asked Steven Welsh to slot in for your local pub team, he could probably do it five times a week. We’re talking about being too fatigued to play effectively against elite athletes, not just generally knackered. |
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Reply | Did history just repeat itself with Michu and Vipotnik?
at 09:30 28 Oct 2026
‘Four full defenders’ implies Tymon and either Lissah or Key are almost always in defensive positions. They aren’t, they are an important part of our attack and we need a midfielder covering them.
Despite last weekend’s hammering, we are way ahead of where any of us or the pundits predicted. More wins than losses and draws combined.
If we were in fifteenth place with more losses than wins it would be a different story. |
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