|
 |
Match report |
|
Swansea City 0 v 2 Colchester United | |
Swansea
Colchester
Attendance
1. Nick Cusack |
Video clips
Listers' view #1 - Phil Sumbler Just when you thought things couldn't get much worse they did. Bad news at the start of the game was the absence of Boyd through injury. Stuart Roberts was again left on the bench with Jenkins occupying central midfield with the returning Cusack. Also back were Coates and Steve Jones.
We started this game very brightly with their keeper causing some alarms in the penalty area and our wide men (Jones and Price in particular) having plenty of space to run into. This period lasted for 10-15 minutes, basically until Colchester scored. Lua Lua the goalscorer I will enthuse about many times in this report because he was, quite simply, outstanding and is a talent wasted in the second division. With the goal which from the lofty view of the back of the NB seemed to come from sloppy defending we lost any pattern that we may have had before it.
The most bizarre moment of the first half was a free kick out on the right. Jenkins and Coates stood over the ball and Jenkins ran over it to leave it for Coates. Quite what Coates was trying next I do not know but he preceded to knock the ball into space 2 yards in front of him to............no-one. There was no-one near him at all. We should have had a free-kick first half for a backpass - wasn;t given. The backpass was blatant and quite how the ref interpreted otherwise I will never know. The players left at half-time to many boos and many rumblings of get a striker in. Second half we were quite simply pulled apart by Lua Lua. He had Steve Jones beaten at every opportunity and ran our defence ragged.
We changed things a little with the introduction of Thomas for Howard and moved to 3 at the back. Later on Casey replaced Coates. To be fair, we never created a half decent chance despite a few goalmouth tussles it was Colchester that were first to every loose ball and controlled the midfield to a worrying extent. Lua Lua hit the bar with an exquisite chip over Freestone from all of 6 yards after turning Smudger inside out and then laid on another chance for his fellow striker who hit the post. The goal was coming and when it did it was another piece of subliminal magic from Lua Lua who proceeded to rifle a low shot into the back of the net. 60% (if not more) of the NB (and the ground) rose to acclaim a truly exceptional player.
Sadly, some of the NB decided it more appropriate to head onto the pitch and confront the Colchester fans. This prompted Hollins to come off the bench and appeal for calm and the crowd to head back. Sadly, this is a different situation to the joy at Rotherham and the 'vociferous side of the NB started singing to him to buy a striker, sort it out and get the chequebook out. Hollins looked stunned by the reaction. There were obviously a lot of internet fans there because at this time the reaction was quite loud ;-) The main difference between the two sides was the striker known as Lua Lua who, as you can probably guess, I thought was a class above. I cannot praise him highly enough. This was a display that showed the weakness in our sides and what really worries me is that I believe we will face better (far better) sides than Colchester this season. I thought about a Swansea MOTM on the way home in the car and the best I can come up with is Matthew Bound but in truth there was very little to be optimistic about today.
I did not enjoy the game at all, bar the one player, and it saddens me that we have to be outplayed and outclassed for the gaps to show. Whether Hollins will act on these gaps now remains to be seen. To be honest, he has to. Sad. No matter what personal opinion is on JH, no-one there today wanted to see what we did. I just hope that we do not have to see it again.
Ratings: -
Subs
Summary - not nice (painful) to watch and shows that we need transfer activity and quickly. Hollins, it's time to prove yourself and don't kid yourselves that the calls against you today were from internet fans. There aren't that many of us. Listers' view #2 - Gary Martin My thoughts on the match: The run had to come to an end some time, but it was an inglorious performance that led to it. The final score was 2-0, but in reality it should have been 4-0. Twice the woodwork came to Swansea's rescue with Freestone completely beaten.
Those that have been calling for Mutton to be given a chance in the first team had their way when he was named as Boyd's replacement. Walter's recently stitched foot had opened up in training yesterday ruling him out for today's and possibly quite a few other games.
JH sent out:-
Subs The match started brightly enough for Swansea with several goalmouth scrambles in the first 10 minutes. Their keeper looked extremely dodgy and a first win of the season was on the cards.
However, against the run of play Lua Lua put Colchester ahead after 15 minutes. A run into the box and shot by Dozell ricocheted to Lua Lua who opened Colchester's account for the season. It didn't take long for the crowd to get at the players and sub-standard performances from quite a few of the players deteriorated even further. My man of the match, Nick Cusack, almost immediately abandoned his midfield role and took responsibility for winning the balls that were pumped at our ineffective forward line. Mutton in particular was having a mare as was Coates. In fact the two loudest cheers in the match were reserved for their substitutions. Despite Cusack trying to cover all areas of the field, there was no rhythm to our play and once again, no chances were created. Second half started with us just the one goal down and so there was every chance that the half-time talk would have done the trick. Alas, performances got worse and the usually dependable Smith & Bound were being run ragged by the rampant Lua Lua. John Hollins says he has money for a striker and is looking for one. Well his chance to prove it is today - as I saw the man that fits his bill - Lua Lua. He was absolutely outstanding. If Walter's our Pearl, then in comparison this chap is suitcase full of gold bullion. Before scoring his second goal, he turned our defence inside out and sent an almost perfect lob over Roger only to be denied by the crossbar. Next he set up the right winger for a similar strike - but his curling shot was kept out by the foot of the far post witha bemused Roger just looking on. On 83 minutes, for the umpteenth time, Lua Lua twisted, turned, dribbled and shot sweetly into the bottom corner of the net to send droves of fans out of the North Bank (even some well known Stepfords were spotted making an early exit). The applause that Lua Lua received from the North Bank was sincere and he even he realised it after a little mickey taking and returned the compliment.
Hollins had replaced Howard (to the bafflement of many) with Thomas and later changed Coates for Casey. Neither of these changes made much difference and the NB bayed for JH to bring on Roberts. After what seemed an age he did replace Mutton with Super Stu but Lua Lua's second strike put pay to any Swansea salvage operation. The restart after the second goal was held up for a few minutes when a lone "fan?" decided to walk onto the pitch to the cheers from some of his friends. Cue a hefty fine from the FAW. The game restarted but 2 minutes later another dozen clambered over the fences and onto the pitch to further delay the game. Cue a bigger fine from the FAW. John Hollins came racing over to help clear these idiots from the field, but even he was surprised by the hostility he was greeted with. Chants of "get your chequebook out£ and "we're shit and we know we are we're shit" clearly rattled him as he headed for the safety of the 40 travelling Colchester fans. With just 2 minutes remaining chants of "What a load of rubbish" rang out from a section of the NB. A very dispirited Swansea left the field at the final whistle and JH and AC have a big job to raise spirits and morale in time for Monday's fixture at Peterborough.
Summary: The myth about strength in depth was cruelly exposed today with the inclusion of Mutton for Boyd. On today's showing, he was completely out of his depth. To be fair, so was Coates - but who probably hasn't trained all week with hamstring problems. The make-a-quick-buck mentality has backfired with the sale of alcohol at the match as I am pretty certain that this contributed to the pitch trespass. It was after all a docile Colchester crew both on the field and in the West Stand. Listers' view #3 - Peter & Bethan Charles Just a few thoughts from us on yesterday's match. In terms of the game itself, we have relatively little to add to the very comprehensive reports already posted. For us Peterborough based Jacks, this was our second home game of the season so far, and hopefully we will look back at it as being the lowest point. In fact, the game was in many ways reminiscent of last season's away performance at Hull - undoubtedly the poorest performance we witnessed last season. The most positive thing we can say is that we turned last season around after that game, so we can do it again.
We did start brightly and could have had a couple of goals early on - a good header from Cusack was cleared off the line, and Watkin nearly created an opening after a mistake by the Colchester keeper. But after that we lost control of the game, and our composure. We struggled badly to handle the irrespresible Lua Lua, but the physical Colchester attack of Duguid and Dozzel also caused us problems. The goal was something of a gift. An innocuous cross was missed by all and sundry, Bound hesitated when he should have cleared, and Lua Lua greatfully accepted the gift from 12 yards. Thereafter, we could have conceded again, and never really looked like replying, despite the enthusiastic and intelligent running of Watkin and Mutton. The game reached its lowest point when Jonathon Coates took a free kick to himself...much to the amazement of the opposition and indeed the referee. The second half was better initially, and we succeeded in delivering a lot of decent balls into the area. Price caused a few problems with his unpredicatable running, but the lack of finishing power was blatant. However, the second half was notable for a more adventurous managerial style from JH, who made three experimental substitions, with Howard, Coates and Mutton being replaced at various stages by Thomas, Casey and Roberts. When Howard left, we moved to an experimental 3 - 5 - 2 style, which resulted in some excellent attempts on goal - from Colchester! The visitors strick the woodwork on two occasions before Lua Lua put us out of our misery with a late strike. Our only efforst of note in the second half were some long range strikes from Howard and Jenlins, and couple of decent efforts from Roberts,who showed some great skill and movement to set himself up for a couple of half chances.
Player ratings:
The game was marred further by some idiotic behaviour by some of the NB'ers. The 'pitch invasion' from one drunken idiot could well have caused the lapse in concentration which led to the second goal. Hopefully, there will be no fine or points deducted for this behaviour that we seem to attract on sunny days! Also, we don't think we'll see any of these nutters at Posh tomorrow...their Mums don't let them travel that far! Ok, majorly disappointing, and we are not greatly looking forward to our Peterborough "derby" match tomorrow, as those Posh guys are in great form. But this was a rare lapse of form for our other wise excellent defence, and we really should not see this as being the end of the world. All at the club know what is needed - a striker of genuine pace and quality who can deliver a genuine end product to the hard work of the rest of the team. A day on from yesterday, rose tinted specs back on, and roll on you Swans!!! Listers' view #4 - Ianto Davies We were absolutely awful and produced one of the worst displays I have witnessed for a very long time. I totally agree with Phil's comments on Lua-Lua - he was awesome and ran our back four ragged. My brother tells me that Spurs recently tried to sign him - well I reckon he's worth £1 million of anyone's money.
However, yesterday we were poor all over the park. For instance, to have poor Tommy Mutton start yesterday only underlines how weak our squad is. He looked like an Under 15 player who was making his debut at senior level and was completely out of his depth. How Hollins allowed the lad to endure an hour is beyond me. We might well have gone up as Champions last season but that just shows how weak the division really was. Hamer and McClure must have been laughing into their champagne flutes all summer. Champions without spending a penny on transfers (no-one still really knows the details of Walter's transfer), an average attendance of almost 6,000 and hardly any dissent among the fans. They've had it so easy. Until now. They've gambled on embarking on a new campaign at a higher level with exactly the same personnel and we're only two weeks into the season and now even they must realise that it simply hasn't paid off. The lack of goals so far this season has reinforced the claims of everyone that we need a new striker and the team building shouldn't stop there.
But who do we blame? Hollins or Messrs Hamer and McClure? The answer is both. Even if Hollins was employed as a puppet and a Yes Man even he MUST now go, cap in hand, to his employers and DEMAND that he is given the green light to go ahead and look for a new striker NOW. This is an opportunity for Hamer and McClure to prove to everyone that they're not just businessmen and really DO have some sort of interest in the club. I regret to admit this but I'm just glad that the Swansea Senior League begins next weekend.
PLAYER RATINGS
SUBSTITUTES
|
Click here to return to the main page.