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Match report |
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Shrewsbury Town 3 v 0 Swansea City | |
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Swansea
Freestone Howard * Cusack Mumford Sharp Todd Coates # Sidibe Brodie Watkin Phillips Jones Williams #64 O'Leary Casey *78 De-Vulgt
Shrewsbury
Referee
Attendance
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After braving the M6 rush hour, and surprisingly having very
little traffic problems, we arrived at Gay Meadow in plenty of
time. The question we ask ourselves is why?
The team lined up as
usual in front of just over 100 travelling fans. The first half
was very much forgettable, with very few direct chances for either
team. Most pressure came from Shrewsbury against a very shaky
defence, but no real chances as there seemed always to be a Swans
player covering any mistakes by the defence.
This pattern
continued for most of the first half, until the defence went to
sleep allowing an attack that was going nowhere, result in a goal.
A cross from the by-line flicked at the near post, with players
just watching. Even though Shrewsbury had had the majority of the
game, with Roger saving on a couple of occasions, we had had a
couple of attacks which fell away due to a bad final ball, or when
we did actually get good balls into the danger area, there were no
forwards attacking the ball. So half time had us talking that yet
again we were losing to a team that offered very little to merit
their position in the table.
The second half performance was abysmal, and it was only down to luck
that we were still in the game reaching the final quarter. Williams
replaced Coates on the hour to try to change things, but nothing came
of it. Casey replaced Howard for the last ten minutes. This
substitution must be questioned as both goals came from this area of
the pitch. The two were very similar, breaks from the halfway line
virtually unchallenged, leaving Roger with no protection. It could
quite easily have been 4 as in the dieing seconds, Shrewsbury missed a
sitter by firing wide from a central position inside the box with only
Rog to beat.
To sum up a wasted night. Sidibe was rubbish tonight, and that is
being kind. He was totally uninterested and should have been
substituted. Shrewsbury players must learn the art of staying on
their feet as they went down as soon as they sensed a challenge.
The highlight was Casey replacing Howard and being introduced as
Jason Jones. Maybe that should have been the substitution, it
couldn't have been worse. On many occasions Rog was going mad with
what was happening in front of him, as it looked as if some
players believed the play-off talk. Well welcome to the real
world, as much as we hate seeing our team lose, this we hope can
only be of benefit as to continue on the unbeaten run would only
have distracted the attention from what is needed in the summer. A
drastic clearout.
It's a shame that again the travelling fans have
had to endure a lacklustre performance that showed that our
players can pick the wrong option on so many occasions. As this is
a family mailing list we won't share with you some of th After
all this there is one positive, we got home in less than an hour.
A very quiet hour as the game was just not worth discussing.
5 of us set off at 4.30pm from Carmarthen, and if we'd known what lay
ahead, we wouldn't have bothered.
A completely gutless, passionless, thoughtless performance you are ever
likely to see.
After waiting 30min in McDonalds in Welshpool for 2 cheeseburgers!!, we
reached the ground a little after 7.45pm. The turnstiles were shut,
maybe they were trying to tell us something?! A steward called us over
and let us in along the side of the home stand and around to the away
end where there were maybe a couple of hundred Jacks.
First half - Both sides devoid of any quality. The only difference was
that Shrewsbury showed a lot more heart, which rewarded them with a goal
5 mins before the break. The referee missed a blatant foul on Watkin,
which he did for the whole night. The Shrewsbury player whipped the ball
into the near post where it was stabbed home by Lormor. That was about
it for the first half. The Swans absolutely pathetic. Sidibe plays when
he wants to, and tonight, he didn't want to!
Second Half - No better. The Swans had a lot of possession but did
absolutely nothing with it. Brodie was running around like a headless
chicken. Sidibe just didn't want to know. Watkin battled hard, but just
didn't have the players around him. In a desperate attempt by Addison to
salvage something from the game, he took off Howard (who was having his
usual bad game), and brought Casey on to push forward. This led to
disaster. Although Howard was playing badly, he was a body in the way of
the Shrewsbury forwards. When he went off, there was now one there. A
WHOLE quarter of the pitch was not occupied by any Swans player. This
led to them playing through balls to their right sided forward Lowe, who
ended up with 2 one on one's with Roger, and duly scored them both. The
Swans defence looking around dazed. They didn't have a clem. Shrewsbury
could have had a fourth, but by that time, I simply didn't care.
Ratings -
Freestone - 6 Couldn't really do anything about the goals.
This report may seem pretty harsh, but if you were there, you'll know
what I mean. I really have to question Mamay Sidibe. His heart just
wasn't in the game. There is no point him playing well in the big games.
He looked so low on motivation, I was expecting Addison to get into him
at Half time, but he even worse in the second half. I don't quite know
what Brodie's role is on the pitch, and I don't think Brodie knows
either!
A very worrying performance which hopefully can be a one off. There's no
excuse for performances like this anymore. Petty has gone, morale is
high (supposedly), so why the awful performance? Ask Addison.
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