"Yesterday was a special day. Transfer Deadline Day. I have heard it is a busy day, but I had never expect it to be THAT busy. Phone call, after phone call, after phone call. There were a lot of paper work to be done. I took a photo of my office to show how messy it is:
To make thing more hectic, the FA thought it would be a great idea to have the COC 3rd Round draw tonight. Here is a short summary of yesterday:
- We signed Carlos Fierro (Chivas) and Jano (Spartak Moskva) on loan deals. We have a clause in Fierro's deal that says we can sign him for £3.8M anytime during the loan spell.
- David Cornell (Rochdale) and Darnel Situ (Preston) were sent out on loan.
- Everton made several bids for Nathan Dyer and after a while pulled out of the negotiations, which upset Nathan. I had a chat with him to clear things up.
- We drew Middlesbrough in the COC. The match will be played at the Liberty
Tomorrow we play Newcastle at St. James's Park. Tough match. I will try to motivate my squad to get a win. It will not be easy."
Jano and Fierro are both amazing youngsters, but not much use in the first season, I believe. The loan deal is a nice idea, as you can get them to love you and join you in the future easily
"They say an image says more than a thousand words...
This should tell you how it feels like to be the man in charge at the moment. Since the last time I wrote here on the blog, we have played two more matches. As the kind man I am, I have left two links to the match reports from Sky Sports in case you have missed out:
Newcastle United 2 - 1 Swansea Ben Arfa 12' (pen) 37' Shetcher 87' Ben Arfa
Newcastle got their first victory of the 12/13 season at St. James' Park this evening when out of form Swansea got beaten. The game did not really start until in the 12th minute, when Newcastle was awarded a penalty after a foul by Kyle Bartley. Hatem Ben Arfa was cool as a cucumber and converted it into a goal. The same man doubled the score 25 minutes later when he finished off a great attack. Swansea's loan ranger Itay Shetcher scored a consolation goal three minutes before full time, but could not stop the Magpies getting the first win of the season.
Swansea almost got a shock victory at the Liberty Stadium this afternoon, but Arsenal managed to secure all three points at the end. Swansea had a fresh star to the match, but it was Arsenal and Olivier Giroud that scored the first goal. Swansea was controlling the first half and got their truly deserved equaliser with a Michu goal. Two minutes later, Leon Britton gave Swansea a shocking lead to make it 2 - 1 at half time. Arsene Wenger must have said something quite special in the dressing room at half time, because it was a totally different team in the second half. Kieran Gibbs made it 2 - 2 before a minute was played. The game was turned around just before the hour was played. Abou Diaby stood alone in the box to easily score Arsenal's winner.
Swansea manager Henrik Steinnes was satisfied with his teams performance. "We played good football today, and I believe it was, despite the defeat, our best performance of the season. If we had got a point from this match it would have been a well deserved one."
So we still got no points and are currently at 20th place (no shocker with no points, really). The next few matches will be very important for us. The 3rd Round of the League Cup is right around the corner and we have matches against Wigan, Stoke, Norwich and Fulham, which are teams it is possible to get some points from.
I just want to say to all the Swansea supporters out there that we need your support despite the poor results. You truly do deserve much, much better than what the team and I have done. Keep the faith, we can still do this."
"This has not been a usual sight this season. Our game against Stoke was a turning point for us. A massive 3 - 0 win at The Britannia. Two goals by Carlos Fierro and one from Garry Monk. I have tried a few different tactics, but it looks like a 4-4-1-1 formation is the best for the club.
But from good news to bad news. We suffered an embarrassing 3 - 0 defeat to Boro in the League cup. Poor, poor result. This game was played before the Stoke match, so we recovered pretty well from this defeat.
Next week we are going to Carrow Road and play against Norwich. They have done ok in the league, but I think it will be a tough fight for the three points. See you soon."
"Another win for us at Carrow Road! A solid 2 - 0 victory. We got back-to-back victories before a goalless draw against Fulham. Carlos Fierro has been in superb form recently. I am therefore very proud to announce that he will join Swansea permanently on January 1st!
I did not get the chance to write a long blog post for you this time. We have a match against Liverpool in 45 minutes. See you then."
To keep up with the story, I will just write down the latest results. It has been a while since I played FM, so it is easier to just write the results to keep up.
Swansea 1 - 1 Liverpool Assaidi 42' Fierro 49' Assaidi
Aston Villa 1 - 0 Swansea Agbonlahor 84' Vlaar
The next update might come already later this evening.
Thank you for the great feedback and thank you for taking time to read and comment my story!
2 - 1 
Swansea
12' (pen) 
Swansea
Liverpool
Aston Villa
1 - 0 
