No Italian romance for Swans who bow out of Europa League proudly
If there is one word which sums up the difference in Swansea City since Garry Monk's appointment, it's pride. Swansea went to Napoli not even needing to win to go through (remarkable considering they hadn't won in their previous five European fixtures), but it was always obvious that Monk was severely unlikely to park the bus. It doesn't appear (from the short amount of time we've had to get used to his tactics) that playing for the draw is something you'd find in his playbook, and last night's performance against Napoli was full of the endeavour and thrust which we've already come to expect from Monk's Swansea.
You just have to look at the comments from the gaffer and the players in the aftermath of the match to get a sense of how they felt they performed. The word pride again features heavily, and we can hold our heads up high after pushing a very, very good Napoli side so close over two legs. Will we ever enjoy such a prolonged European run again? We can by no means guarantee another foray into Europe, so Monk was right to throw caution to the wind at the end of the tie and send everyone forward - I don't think I've ever seen a team go as "all out attack" as we did for the final few minutes last night, and it was refreshing to see. That was a desire to win.
The game itself started well enough. The Swans got their feet on the ball and were knocking it around well. Things weren't going to plan for Benitez's men, and then a defensive catastrophe saw Insigne waltz through into acres of space to lob Vorm, lifting the bouncing ball over the Dutchman superbly. 1-0 down, but plenty of time to get back into it. It seemed criticism of Tiendalli was almost universal for the goal, with people saying he "didn't go with his man" for the goal, but to me it looked like Ben Davies was a couple of yards deeper than the rest of the line and that he was the only person playing Insigne on. If Tiendalli was at fault for not chasing his man and calling for offside, Davies was equally at fault for playing the man onside.
The goal didn't seem to fluster Swansea though. We kept knocking it around and Bony in particular was looking really good early on. His link play is getting really, really good and his touch seems to have returned - at times early this season the ball did seem to bounce off him a little but some of the touches he's produced in recent weeks have been sublime. There was one point where he did a cheeky rollover before splitting the Napoli defence with a wonderful through ball - really, really encouraging stuff.
I've been saying for a while that if Jonathan De Guzman is willing to run until it hurts he will be some player. At times I've thought he's a little too pedestrian, but the influence Monk is having on his game is very positive. Our equaliser came from Bony flicking the ball through first time, which found De Guzman sprinting into space beyond the Napoli defence. The Dutchman composed himself, and hit a low shot back across Reina left-footed which the keeper could only get a soft hand to, and not enough to stop the scores being levelled. That's where De Guzman should be for me. His finishing is tidy, and if you put him in front of goal good things will happen.
The rest of the game saw plenty of sparring, with Bony spurning one great chance in the second half. A lovely Swansea break saw Pablo cross for the Ivorian, and in fairness the Spaniard put it on his head. Sadly, Bony connected too well and headed straight at Pepe Reina. Anywhere else, and we'd have been looking at 2-1...
Sadly though, it wasn't to be and Higuain snatched what proved to be the decisive goal. Another defensive mix-up came after the Swans looked like they'd managed to avert any danger - the ball ricocheted off Ben Davies and into the path of the Argentinian who smashed it home. 78 minutes gone, and it was always going to be a big ask from here.
In fairness to the Swans, and as mentioned earlier, they left everything on the field. I honestly don't think I've seen a team go as all-out attack as we did last night for the final few minutes, and it seemed inevitable that if we didn't score, Napoli would get a third. We survived what seemed to be countless overloaded counterattacks where Napoli broke forward, with Ben Davies blocking one which seemed destined to end in a goal, but eventually the dam broke and Gokhan Inler scored the Italian's third with the last kick of the game. As I've said a couple of times now in recent weeks - if we play like that there's no shame in losing.
We must now take the positives and the experience gained from this first European adventure of modern times, and use them to our advantage in the league. With the fixture list thinning out, three winnable home games coming up (Palace, Norwich, West Brom), and the league now our only objective, I'm sure we'll some positive results in the next few weeks. Palace at home is very winnable, and it's been made more spicy by Tom Ince's comments about Swansea "not being able to handle what Palace do". We'll see Tom.
So, our European adventure is over. It's been great fun, and any fans who traveled to the away games undoubtedly have fantastic memories they'll treasure for the rest of their lives. What is massively encouraging for the Swans though is these last two performances against Napoli, coupled with the showing against Liverpool, show that if the Swans adhere to Monk's system and work hard enough then we can mix it with anybody.
The first step in pulling away from the relegation zone is to beat Palace at home this Sunday. Let's get behind the team and see them to what would be the third home league win in a row - the return of Fortress Liberty? If so, it's long overdue. Come on you Swans!
