Only Southampton & Stoke have conceded less goals since the league got underway, which is no surprise given how much work has been put in on the training ground
There was a time not so long ago that Swansea's slick passing football was also synonymous with sturdy defending. The season before we gained promotion to the Premier League, Dorus De Vries surpassed Roger Freestone's record and kept a remarkable twenty-five clean sheets, and we weren't shabby at the back under Rodgers either.
The system-based defence which had been the foundation for all our recent success had waned somewhat by last season, however, and we found ourselves conceding silly goals. Even Ash was guilty of some sloppiness on occasion, though that's more than mitigated by having to deal with flappy Spaniard Chico Flores wandering around alongside him, clattering forwards and rolling on the floor with abandon in equal measure.
That's all changed under Monk though. So far this season we've kept five clean sheets in eight games in all competitions, and what we're seeing is clearly the result of lots of dedicated work on the training ground. You don't become a unit as well-drilled as we are currently by mistake, and proof of this is there for everyone to see. Southampton's only real chance of the game they took, but apart from that they couldn't break us down. For all Sunderland's huff and puff they struggled to get in behind us, and were restricted to pumping crosses into the box.
In fact, Chelsea are the only side in eight games to have put more than one goal past us. Ok, we've not played the entire of the predictable top six or so teams but clean sheets away at Sunderland, at home to Everton and a solid showing against Southampton really do provide a reason to be hopeful. As pointed out on the SWEP website earlier today, if we continued accruing clean sheets at our current rate we'd finish the season with nineteen in total in the league. While that's at the very best extremely hopeful, it's definitely something to aim for.
Monk has been open about how the team have looked to build from the back, and cut out the individual errors which cost us so often last season:
"Perhaps we don't get always get the credit but that's what we're based upon first. We don't just turn up thinking we can play football and that everyone will let us play. We know we have to work hard on the other side of our game.
"We've done that in all our games so far and I want us to continue doing that. We put in a lot of work during pre-season, defensive work and work on shape, and you could see that at Sunderland - even when we went down to ten men we were okay, and that was good to see.
"Teams can think we're an easy target at set-pieces and things like that, but all the set-pieces Sunderland had we defended extremely well. As I say, that's something we've been working very hard on.
"It's something I concentrated a lot on in pre-season. I gave the players a lot of information because it's down to detail. I knew as a defender myself it's down to details - you need them as a defence and midfield and attack - and the shape, as well as set-pieces.
"We've really tried to nail that down and at this moment in time, it's paying off."
http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/Hard-work-pays-Garry-Monk-s-resilient-Swansea/story-23023555-detail/story.html#ixzz3EtUT5M8p
As Monk says, we have been viewed as a soft touch in the past and that will soon change. One of the hallmarks of this season so far is that, on the whole, we've been the hungrier, more determined outfit who leave everything on the field in the desire to get to the ball first. If we keep this up, it won't be long before notions of the Swans being a team who wilt under pressure disappear altogether. Style is all well and good, but you need the fortitude to hang in a game.
Steel and style, as it were. Seems a winning formula to me.