Swansea City 2015/16 Season Long Thread: ***Now an American Takeover Edition****

SEASON PREVIEW

GKs

Lukasz Fabianski is coming off a dynamite season in 14/15 where he compiled 13 clean sheets and received the Players' Player of the Year award. The Swans will look once again for his dominance in the box to set the tone in the back this season.

Newcomer Kristoffer Nordfeldt will add quality depth behind Fabs and the Swede will hopefully get some good run in the FA and League Cups

Defense

Captain Fantastic Ashley Williams leads from the back and is one half of the most underrated CB pairing in the BPL. Argentinian Federico Fernandez had a fantastic debut season and the two no doubt played a huge part in the 13 clean sheets held last season. Jordi Amat and Kyle Bartley round out the CBs.

January signing Kyle Naughton had a good second half of the season that was cut short due to injury. He will look to bounce back with veteran Angel Rangel providing depth behind him. On the left Neil Taylor improved as the season progressed and showed that he is fully back from his gruesome ankle injury. New signing Frank Tabanou provides much needed depth on the left and from his highlights can certainly get forward and fire a shot on goal - LINK He also fits the Monk mold with versatility as he can play LM as well. How he defends remains to be seen. This group failed to score a goal last season - a fact I am sure they will look to bury in the past.

Midfield

By far the deepest part of the squad. Gylfi looks to pull the strings again as the #10 and build upon a season where he had 7 goals and 10 assists. January signing Jack Cork will be at the base of the midfield to cover the defense and has proven to be a hell of a bargain since coming over. Ki is coming off a season where he voted by the fans as player of the year after scoring 8 goals and showing a willingness to play any role asked of him in the midfield. After having an awful first half of the season and most of the fans wanting him gone, Jonjo turned around his play and his attitude and had a fantastic second half. He was awarded for the effort with a new 4 year deal this summer. After speculation of his leaving it appears Leon Britton will remain part of the team. While his minutes might be few and far between, he will provide a leadership in the locker room that can't be replaced.

On the wings Jefferson Montero will run directly at you with pace and look to get to the byline and cross it in. You know what he is going to do but good luck stopping it. Not many people in the BPL can run with him step for step. He is definitely a pass first shoot second player and will always look to set up the man in the box for the goal. He also did this to Calum Chambers last year



Newcomer Andre Ayew can also play winger or forward so it will be interesting to see how we set up with them. He also scored at least 8 league goals in 4 of his 5 season at Marseille so he will provide another scoring option to help ease the pressure off of Gomis.

Wayne Routledge saw time at RW and as a second forward last year paired up with Gomis up top of the 4-4-2 diamond. With the arrival of Ayew I expect his minutes to drop. Nathan Dyer is coming off a terrible season that saw him dropped towards the end. Minutes will be hard to come by for him. Modou Barrow provides quality depth as another pacey winger option.

Forwards

Bafetimbis Gomis leads the line after a strong finish to his 2014/15 campaign. After rumblings about wanting to leave in January due to lack of playing time (which was quickly fixed after Wilf was sold), he like Jonjo did a complete 180 in attitude and started to put the ball in the net. I would not be shocked if he reached 15 goals this season.

New signing Eder from Portugal looks to be a like for like backup to Gomis. I doubt we see them play together but this is quality depth in a position that desperately needs it.

Season Outlook

It will be hard to top the 8th place finish from last season but we know Monk will go out each and every week to try for the 3 points. The good news we saw during his rookie season as manager was now we have a plan B when it comes to formation and tactics. We can roll out the 4-4-2 diamond to get all of our quality CMs in the game at once (which would likely see Ayew pushed up to pair with Gomis as the 2nd forward with Cork, Jonjo, Ki and Gylfi in the midfield). Also when we want to play wingers we have the old 4-2-3-1 which would likely see Cork and Ki/Jonjo at the base, with Jeff/Ayew, Gylfi/Jonjo, and Ayew/Routledge playing behind Gomis as the lone striker. It will be interesting to see if we can play Jeff and Ayew at the same time as both prefer to play on the left.

A mid table finish seems like the smart pick here and to me that's a good finish. Another season like last year would be tremendous and who knows, it could happen with the return of basically the entire squad and the addition of Ayew to bang in more goals. One thing I know it will be fun as usual to watch this team take the fight to each and every opponent.

No doubt. Would be nice to pull off opening day magic like last year when we won at ManU but don't see that happening against Chelsea.

I'm going to get around to some season previews later if anyone cares

Has Swansea spent the fee from Bony? (or was it in the Ayew signing)

Some of the money was spent signing Cork (amazing bargain) and Naughton in January as well. While Ayew was on a free, he was "free" like Gomis was - instead of paying a club transfer fees we take part of that and give it to the player as a "signing on bonus" of sorts. Helps us compete with the higher wages that other clubs can offer and we still come out spending less

Make sense bc away games from Wales for epl games has to be a bitch

Monk has confirmed what we all knew - Michu will not be part of the team this next season

Best 1860 Munich 2-1. Gomis and Cork with the goals

Season preview now up in the 3rd post for those looking to learn a little more about the team for this upcoming season

a fricking own goal and gomiss giving up a stupid foul have us behind

And Ki is out too

We will still win this but damn its annoying