How will our mercurial Spaniard fit into Monk's new look Swansea?
With rumours circulating surrounding the future of Swansea's other main goal threat (Wilfried Bony), Michu's star seems to have been obscured somewhat and a player who was once talked about as a £25million target for Arsenal is now the subject of rumours of a different sort - West Ham are reported to be interested but given how much he struggled with injury last season it'd be remarkable, in my opinion, if anyone makes a move for him this summer.
That means he's almost definitely going to be a Swansea City player next season, and the question still remains as to how to get the most from the languid, sometimes frustrating Spaniard. After scoring twice on his debut (always a good way to endear yourself to fans) his goalscoring form was pretty epic for the first six months of his Swansea career. He played thirty-five games in the Premier League that season, scoring eighteen goals - thirteen of which came in the first eighteen games. He then managed just five in the next seventeen games, and this coincided with Swansea's decline in form.
When Michu was banging in goals left, right (mainly left) and centre an overall decline in the zip in our passing and the intricacy with which we retained possession wasn't that noticeable, but when the goals dried up we looked very poor. After winning against Newcastle in the aftermath of the Carling Cup victory in February we only won once more in ten games (against Wigan), and coincidentally that was the only game he didn't feature in. That was a mad game though, so I wouldn't read too much into that - I mean come on, Shechter AND Tiendalli scored!
I do think though that an inability to fit Michu into the previously existing tika-taka system meant that we lost focus a bit in terms of our footballing style, and given we'd already proven that by employing that style you could play with supposedly inferior players and get results I thought that was unwise. If a player doesn't fit in a system you can't just chuck him in the team and hope for the best, you need to develop a way of adapting the system or implementing a new one - as we've seen with Monk changing things up to get the best out of Bony. Laudrup did try to change things up a bit but this was limited to switching Michu between attacking midfield and centre-forward, and that simply wasn't sufficient. Michu is so…individual he needs to be catered for, and in the traditional 4-2-3-1 by allowing him to play his 'natural' game you lose so much in terms of midfield coherency and ball retention.
So, this season then. Michu didn't start particularly well in the league, but he did have more joy in Europe - albeit against generally ropey opposition. You can only play what's in front of you though, and four in seven in the early stages of the Europa League gave reason to believe he'd rediscover his form.
Sadly though he only managed two in ten in the Premiership before he missed a spell through knee problems, before two partial comebacks saw him play seven further games without scoring any more goals. It seems that he's had more injury problems than we were aware of, and I do wonder how fit he was at the beginning of last season given the ongoing nature of the ankle and knee problems. It must be so hard for a manager - I'd hope if someone wasn't fit they wouldn't get in the team but if someone is saying they're fine what are you to do?
For me there simply wasn't enough of an adjustment to cater for Michu's style. Look at the success we'd had under Martinez, Sousa then Rodgers - it was all built around a strict adherence to a system, and every one of the eleven players delivering for ninety minutes. This is not a slight on Michu as I believe there are ways of getting the most from such a player in a possession-based system, but if you have someone essentially wandering around the midfield/final third at will the whole system falls apart.
I remember one instance this season where Michu had stood still near the halfway line out on the right wing, for some reason. The ball came across and Leon Britton was where he should be - just inside and slightly deeper. The ball came to Michu and because of his abstract positioning he had created an overload of opposition markers and he had to give the ball to Leon straight away. Leon was having none of it and passed it straight back. Michu gave it back first time again…and then Leon gave it straight back. To me that was Leon saying 'No way! You got yourself into this position you get yourself out of it! I'm right where I should be and it's not my fault if our midfield is out of shape'. Maybe I read too much into what was essentially four passes though.
So how to get the most out of Michu? Assuming and hoping he's fully fit for the beginning of next season, I think the employment of a 4-4-2 diamond at the tail end of last season was very much with a view to playing both Bony and Michu up top, as our midfield had simply stopped working by the end of Laudrup's reign, and if we can find a way of including two natural goalscorers AND getting our midfield retaining possession for fun we'll be laughing all the way to the top half of the table.
The beauty of this is the ease with which you can switch into a 3-5-2 which is very similar to the 4-2-3-1 we traditionally employ (you can read more on this here - link). Leon drops in between the centre backs and all of a sudden you're retaining possession again. It seems such a natural option that I do really hope we're looking at this. Given the players at our disposal I think it's definitely amongst the best options and the best systems are always picked (or designed) to get the most out of the current players available.
This would allow Bony to lumber about smashing the ball into the back of the net, and I'm sure if Michu got used to playing alongside our Ivorian man mountain he'd soon figure out a way to use it to his advantage - especially if he was stripped of the defensive responsibility that comes with the role you play at attacking midfield, or even striker, in the normal system he was being used in.
It seems a winner to me anyway. Michu won't be happy to be playing second fiddle to Bony, and I don't see the point in keeping him on the bench either. Find a way of getting the most out of both of our strikers next season and we will be in for a very exciting season indeed. Can you imagine if both got around twenty goals next season? That'd be us safe right away. If we get the system behind them right, the goals will sort themselves out.