Swansea City 1 - West Bromwich Albion 0

Cardiff Baggie:

went to the Liberty Stadium today as I live just to the West of Cardiff. I was born in West Bromwich though and have supported Albion for 50 years.

I will cut to the chase. I hope Alan Pardew is up for the Championship, in the same way that Rafa Benitez was at Newcastle. We are going to struggle to stay up, unless some changes are made in the January window.

Without Morrison, Phillips or Chadli today, Albion lacked any real penetrative creativity - needed to unlock a defence. This is a real issue at the moment, and has been for about 9 months at least!!

Albion were the better side in the first half I thought, this Swansea team is not as good as last season when they had Llorente and Sigurdson. They don't seem to have as much pace as they used to either. Although Albion did have a reasonable half, they carried little genuine goal threat. We also hardly won a header, as a fan next to me said. Sorry, for me, Rondon is not the answer for Albion as a Premier League standard striker, he can't properly hold up the ball for others, doesn't win enough 50 - 50 challenges and just doesn't do enough at this level, although he works hard.

Second half, Albion started quite well in the middle of the park but again in the final third there was not much real threat. There was however one excellent opportunity on a counter attack. Hal Robson Kanu chose to shoot from the right side of the box, when if he had crossed it we would probably have scored. Swansea scored late in the half after a series of corners (3) very close together had shown that the defence was not that well organised, and Bony was able to score. As I was behind the goal at the other end, and quite low down, I did not have a good view of it.

We then threw everything forward, but it was too late. Swansea should have scored a second when Tammy Abraham ran clear to be 1:1 with Foster, but he fired his shot to the left of the goal. Overall, Albion worked hard, and had a bit more possession than we would have done under Tony Pulis's tactics, but we are missing a number 10 type attacking midfielder, and a striker who will get you 10 - 15 goals in a season. The referee gave Swansea too many free kicks but that starts to sound like an excuse. The problems we have are deeper than that.

Funky Fudge:

We are going down this year.

Megson managed to set the team up to score 3 goals in two games against Spurs and Newcastle. Barring a lack of confidence / discipline, we probably should have had at least one win from those two games. Had to be worth a deal until the end of the season?

With Pardew we have “Pulis lite”. I said to my dad at the time – although I didn’t want either, given a choice I would have preferred Allardyce over Pardew. The board should be ashamed of themselves for just going for Hammond’s mate – what has he done to justify being appointed?

We needed a decent, regularly scoring striker in the summer and got Rodriguez.

If we can’t even muster a goal against the bottom two teams in the league, we are going down.

If it is true that we have little room to manoeuvre during the window due to financial fair play rules, we are stuffed. At the very least, assuming the contract allows, we should cut our losses on Krychowiak and save some wages. Perhaps use the wages to get Walcott on loan until the end of the season as he doesn’t seem to feature for them – pace, scores goals? I would offload Rondon if we can get anything like reasonable money and assuming we could find a replacement – either on loan or as a permanent signing.

If we go down with this squad, I can’t see us coming straight back up, especially when you see some of the teams in the Championship. Which players are going to be up for two games a week in the Championship?

Steve Fereday:

That performance was rubbish. Albeit, Pardew take a bow for setting us up to have a go for the first time in 3 years. Thank you sir.

The players need to watch that performance and be embarrassed. They should look into a mirror and admit they gave everything. God help us if they all do that and say they did. Swansea were rubbish and we made them look good.

They were bottom of the league and they deserved to win and we did not. We are in deep relegation form. Olly Burke should start so throw him in.

We will do well to avoid the drop. The squad we have is very good, so I don't understand what is going on.

Brendan Clegg:

Difficult to disagree with the previous comments.

This was a disaster of a result.

I feared the worst when Phillips didn't make it because it leaves us so lacking in pace that we really struggle to get forward and create.

Can't really blame Pardew - he needs time to learn what most of us regualr watchers already know; this side needs pace and creativity in wide areas whatever combination of players and formations we go for. Personally having seen what we were missing last weekend I'd have started Burke and McClean in the wide roles. I'd much rather it was Phillips and Chadli but they are the backup options and HRK/Jrod do not have the legs to do it. At least Pardew had a bloody go.

We desparately need Phillips, Morrison and Chadli back. To be missing all 3 at the same time is simply too much for us to cope with and it's extremely frustrating how underused all 3 were when they were available under Pulis.

In my opinion, which hasn't really changed since the start of the season, we have to play a 4-2-3-1/4-5-1 with quick wingers on their natural sides and at least one creative attacking midfielder in the team.

I agree that our squad is good enough - in a parallel world where margins were flipped the other way, starting with a clear penalty and sending off at Arsenal at the beginning of our terrible run, we could be 10 points better off. I maintain this squad with a fully fit set of players, playing with the correct blend of attack and defence is better than Burnley's or Watford's. That is where we could be.

But we have to show their level of form from now on in and we have to pick players that fit into a system who work as a unit and deserve the shirt every week- not our best 11 individuals or based on transfer fees.

I'm not sure selling to buy in January is going to help us. If we sell Evans and Chadli are we going to get better players? Where are these strikers or wingers that are better than what we have and would come? It's more critical to get our best players fit and all playing together in a run of games. If players want to go, let it be in the summer.

There's no point rating this game. Throw it away. We're good enough to get something out of the next 2 games.