Swansea boss glad to reintroduce Spaniard, but acknowledges team effort is required to halt slide
There are various theories as to why we've fallen apart in the second half of the last two league games. I think against Palace there's only so much analysis to be done as we were at the tail end of a crazy run of games, but against WBA the manner in which we surrendered control of the game was alarming.
Jon Trew did a very interesting piece yesterday (link) where he suggested that in order to regain possession the Swans should actually have dropped deeper, and opened the pitch up. In the first half, Ash spent a large amount of time in the deepest section of the pitch, but in the second half he was active much further forward. It was then pointed out on Twitter that after Michu came on for Jose Canas Ash didn't spend ANY time in the deepest section of the pitch for the remainder of the match.
I'm not saying Michu was at fault - he's clearly not going to be match fit and it was the way the whole team was trying to operate. We lost our cohesion in midfield and our pass completion dropped ten percent compared to the first half - a dramatic dropoff and must unlike what we've come to expect from the Swans.
Given his prolonged absence, it's understandable that a large section of the support are hoping Michu can fire us to safety now that he's back in contention for a place in the lineup, but Garry Monk is a bit more pragmatic about things:
"A few of the other boys have been chipping in with goals while Michu has been out, and of course that has to continue. If he can come in and add his quality and get a few goals then great, but it's a team effort.
"They were difficult circumstances — ideally it would have been nice to bring him on in a better situation. Maybe if we'd been controlling the game, Michu could have had more of an influence, but it's great to see him back fit and those minutes on the pitch will help him."
http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Swansea-City-expect-Michu-says-Garry-Monk/story-20822351-detail/story.html#ixzz2wIu4LRom
It's totally understandable why Monk brought Michu on against the Baggies. With the Swans suffering from extreme opposition pressure, bringing Pablo on for Jose would have been a ballsy move, given West Brom had been harrying our central midfield all game. Michu offers a much more physical threat, but sadly he wasn't able to affect proceedings that greatly.
The problem we face now is that Bony & Michu haven't actually played together on the field that much. Bony was introduced slowly after missing a large portion of pre-season, and by the time he was regularly included Michu had succumbed to injury. I don't think we've got time for them to build a partnership, as using both in the starting eleven would drastically alter the dynamic of a typical Swansea team.
I think given Bony has shown over the last few months he's more than capable of leading the line for us, for now Michu should still be reintroduced slowly. I think since Monk's come in one of the big positives is how much more of the pitch we're using, and by replacing Bony with Michu - or even putting Michu behind the Ivorian - I think it would result in our possession game being played more towards our own goal. With Bony (despite a couple of iffy performances) being able to hold up possession that much further up the field it stretches the game in Swansea's favour, and that gives our midfielders room to run into.
For now we should stick with three proper central midfielders and Bony up top, and if you're looking for an impact player off the bench to replace Bony I don't think you could do much better than Miguel Perez Cuesta. He could do with building up his match fitness slowly (much has recently been made of shortened recovery periods leading to recurring injuries) and I think by taking Bony off on sixty-five/seventy minutes you could arguably get the best out of what both strikers can offer you at the moment.
Firstly, Bony can run that much harder knowing he doesn't have to make the full ninety minutes. Considering how much of a handful he is for centre-halves anyway, that really is an intriguing concept. Secondly, the same can be said of Michu - if he's only got a shorter time period to play then he can charge around like a bull in a china shop (I tried to think of a toreador pun for ages but sadly failed) and cause chaos in the ranks of tiring opposition defences.
This idea is probably going to be met with dismay from a large section of the support who'd favour Michu returning to the starting lineup as soon as he's physically up to it, but I do think we've looked a more balanced team in the last few months. Ok, results haven't improved but we're just a lucky break away from a good result. Against Palace & WBA Bony had chances which on any other day could well have gone in, and those goals would probably have seen us pick up an extra five points - which would be absolutely massive right about now.
So, Michu super-sub then? For now, at least...