Swansea supporters could have been forgiven an envious glance at Brighton when Chris Hughton and his players arrived in south Wales on Saturday. Quietly, Hughton has built a side who are proving extremely difficult to beat and who are, with minimal transfer outlay, already looking settled and competitive in the Premier League.
Six years ago Swansea occupied the same place: they were the admired newcomers who couldn't move for praise. Times change, though. While Hughton's national popularity has grown, doubts about Brighton's defence have receeded and Pascal Gross has become everyone's favourite budget Fantasy Football pick, their opponents entered this game bandaged up figuratively and literally. Wilfried Bony and Renato Sanches were unavailable through injury, Martin Olsson's damaged hamstring left Paul Clement with just a single fit full-back and talismanic captain Leon Britton was left sitting in the stands.
Off the pitch, too, the fractures were showing: a small, peaceful gathering of fans demonstrated outside the ground before kick-off, handing out leaflets protesting the current ownership. Things aren't as they used to be around here and, although Swansea may yet survive another relegation battle, the mood surrounding the club has definitely changed.
And, on Saturday, it disintegrated further. The team were booed off at half and full-time and towards the end of another insipid defeat, as attitudes hardened, angry chants were directed towards the board.
Wide boys
Brighton might be hard-working, but they're not without talent - particularly in the wide areas. Anthony Knockaert had befuddled makeshift full-back Sam Clucas inside five minutes and from an early flurry of corners, Gross tested Lukasz Fabianski's confidence under the high ball. Swansea mounted a response of sorts, with a driven Kyle Naughton cross requiring an excellent intervention from Shane Duffy and Ki Sung-yueng's flighted free-kick causing visiting hearts to briefly flutter at the back post.
The Liberty Stadium crowd is one at the end of its tether, though. Every misplaced pass or hesitation the home team makes brings cries of anguish from the stands. Tom Carroll felt the brunt early, antagonising the natives with a Cruyff turn towards his own goal. The supporters are only reacting to what they've seen before, of course, but it's the kind of corrosive negativity which destroys confidence - and, more than anything else, Swansea look like a scared team. Poorly built and hopelessly understocked, too, but terrified of the consequences of each mistake.
It was no surprise, then, that Brighton opened the scoring. Glenn Murray reacted best to a Knockaert cross, capitalised on Federico Fernandez's miscalculation and scuffed a finished back across Fabianski. Not, obviously, a moment which soothed local frustration.
Credit to Brighton, of course, because they earned their half-time lead. They didn't have to do anything special to earn it, though. Knockaert flickered, Gross too, while Dale Stephens and Lewis Dunk each had good games - but they didn't have to create any sustained pressure to make Swansea crack. It just happened; eventually, the mistake just appeared and a simple chance was easily converted.
Simple structure
Ultimately, it was reward for being a functioning team built from logical, interlocking parts. A basic commodity in football, perhaps, but not a description anyone would bestow on Swansea. They may have good players, but they are critically under-resourced in key departments. One would have thought, for instance, that on selling Gylfi Sigurdsson, a source of such creativity, the club's priority might have been a replacement. Not someone of equal worth or ability, but a player with a vaguely comparable skillset.
Alas not. Going forward, Swansea are a midfield and an attack: two departmental banks with no overlap. There's no scheming, no craft and no real goal threat. The problem is less a lack of shots and more an inability to infiltrate the penalty box in any meaningful way. The effect of that is pure ugliness: players being urged by the crowd to do things which they're not capable of, inevitably failing, and then suffering the resulting derision. Superfically, that would seem to characterise the relationship between the fans and their team but, really, it's descriptive of something far deeper, something much more systemic.
"My summary of that is if we play to such a low standard we can't expect to win a game. Even at the most basic level we're not getting the details right."
There was no little effort from the home players but, tellingly, the more energetic they became the more muddled they looked. Carroll was subsituted early in the second-half to ironic cheers after one mis-step too many and the more substitutes Clement made, the more obvious it became that his side only possess one gear. Brighton were comfortable. Mat Ryan made one excellent smothering save from Abraham, but Hughton's back four were rarely turned around and, that moment aside, his goalkeeper never stretched.
Nobody will remember this game. Even those who were here will have bleached it from their mind by the time they get home. It should be instructive, though. Home matches against relatively weak opposition are the lifeblood of relegation-threatened teams and Swansea's inability to show a pulse here should demand action.
There was no sign of improvement, there was no bad luck to bemoan or any offical to blame. In fact, the only conclusion to draw is that January cannot come soon enough.
The alarm bells are ringing at the Liberty Stadium. Loudly.
