Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers insists his side will return refreshed and raring to go from their upcoming break in Tenerife as they look to put their disappointing 3-2 home defeat at Norwich behind them.
The Canaries completed the double over the Swans with a thrilling victory at the Liberty Stadium. After falling behind to a Danny Graham goal the visitors scored three times in 16 minutes through a Grant Holt brace and an Anthony Pilkington strike to take control.
Graham got a goal back late on after Holt had given away a penalty, but Norwich held on as they defied a late barrage of Swansea pressure, with John Ruddy making an outstanding save from Steven Caulker's header to secure the three points.
The defeat was only Swansea's second at home this season, following their November defeat against Manchester United, and brought to an end an excellent run of results that had included wins over Arsenal and West Brom and draws with Tottenham and Chelsea.
Rodgers and his team head to Tenerife this week for a training camp that the manager hopes will give his squad a boost before they return to action against Stoke at the Britannia Stadium in two weeks' time.
"It's such a demanding league," said Rodgers. "It is a wonderful journey but our plan was always to look at critical moments of the season and we felt it would be an important period through March and April and this gives us a chance to recharge our batteries and refresh our minds ahead of the last 13 games."
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Sorry Graham that sounds like absolute tosh to me. Paul Lamberts plan was not too develop a game to stifle Swansea, it was a plan to attack them and put them on the back foot as teams do in Swansea away games. Each and every team visiting the Liberty this season apart from Norwich and Man utd have been more than happy to sit back and try take a safe point.That goes for Spurs and Arsenal too. Swansea will improve and adapt, everyone seems to forget this is the first ever season in the Premier league and with faster distribution forward as per Norwich plan Danny Graham can easily be a Twenty goal a year player with Nathan Dyer and Scott Sinclair each more than able to score Ten each no problem.
Rodgers needs to be prepared to adjust his tactics during the game or other teams will work out how to stop Swansea from playing and running the game, just like Norwich did. Paul Lambert had done his homework and developed a plan to stop Swansea's passing game and Bredan Rodgers seemed to have no answer to it. He was stuck in a rigid passing game without being able to adapt his game plan to counter the manner in which Swansea were outplayed. Also, it is still evident that Swansea are in urgent need of a 20-goal a season forward. They rely heavily on the front three of Sinclair, Graham, and Dyer, none of whom are prolific scorers, and there seems to be no one in the squad who can provide the goals that Swansea require to give them the extra ponts that are needed for safety in the Premier League. So it seems that the Swans are going to continue struggling to produce goals at home and away, and it will be a fight until the end of the season to remain in the PL for next season.
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