Yes. The entire team, I agree completely. That's including the goalkeeper, clearly. Gomes was never any good with the ball at his feet, that's one of his clearest weaknesses, he struggled to get past the half way line with some of his kicks, his touch was poor even for a goalie and his shorter passes were inaccurate. Friedel is better, but still far from even being good with the ball at his feet, never mind great.
We'll see who AVB keeps bringing in, but with Vertonghen we've taken a step in the right direction. We now have him and Ekotto who are very comfortable on the ball in the backline, Kaboul who does alright and Walker who really needs to improve, but he's young so hopefully he can. We haven't brought in any central midfielders yet (imo), we'll see, I'm guessing if we sign some they will be very good on the ball. Can't expect AVB to change everything straight away and he shouldn't, but if we do sign a goalkeeper either now or in the next year who's great on the ball then at least that's another step in (what I think is) the right direction.
Did you read the interviews with Rodgers last season about how much work they put into finding the right goalkeeper for them, having the right goalkeeper was a key aspect of making their style work?
Swansea do go long when you press them enough, key word being enough. Last season teams were generally able to force us into long balls while only committing two players high up the pitch, leaving their two banks of four organized and in place. That means that our long balls were less likely to succeed when we were forced to play them, or rather even less likely to succeed as we weren't0 any good at them even at the best of times. If the opponents have to commit 3-4 players to force us into long balls we will have more room to utilize when we do play it long and they will be disorganized when we actually manage to play through their pressure, and that will happen sometimes.
