Match report

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Swansea City 0 v 0 Cheltenham

Swansea 0 v 0 Cheltenham A clear blue sky greeted the teams on a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon.

Swansea were seeking their first double of the season against a Cheltenham side still struggling at the wrong end of the table. Swans had won 4-3 at Cheltenham early in the season when Lee Trundle first bought notice to himself scoring a hat-trick.

Injuries and suspensions had taken their toll again today, but the return of club captain Roberto Martinez was welcomed by all. Trialist Earl Davis took a place on the bench.

Lee Trundle was trying to end a barren spell for both him and the Swans with no goal in the last two games.

The first 15 minutes of the game were very open with both sides prepared to throw men forward. Cheltenham played with 5 across the middle, with Damien Spencer alone up-front. Swansea played the midfield many would have chosen as their ideal four pre-season prior to injuries and the excellent form of Andy Robinson.

Unfortunately, as is becoming the norm everything was aimed down the right to Brad Maylett, with Karl Connolly supposedly playing left midfield but all too often coming in field to a central role.

The first real chance of the game fell to Spencer who headed over under pressure from O'Leary.

Cheltenham were managing to stifle Swans in midfield and had some success breaking forward down the right. On several occasions Lenny Johnrose incepted dangerous looking situations.

Lee Trundle was having a quiet time, Brad Maylett was unable to get past the excellent Jamie Victory and Kevin Nugent hardly won an aerial challenge.

To add to this, Roberto Martinez looked exactly like he had hardly kicked a ball for months and there was some poor distribution from Roger Freestone, Kris O'Leary and Stuart Jones.

Half time arrived with Swans barely having had a shot of note. The biggest frustration to me was out predictability. I had been concerned whether the pitch in front of the centre stand would have been frozen this morning. If it had, it would hardly of mattered as the Swans failed to utilise this area of the field.

Thankfully Swans started the second half a little more brightly, and on forty-eight minutes had their first serious effort when Trundle fed Leon Britton and his shot was deflected for a corner.

The resulting corner a Karl Connolly shot was blocked and eventually cleared after a goal-mouth scramble.

Although Swans were looking brighter, they were also starting to leave gaps and on fifty minutes a free kick from the left was watched by several defenders, and centre-half Michael Duff had a totally free header. Thankfully, he headed well wide.

On fifty-five minutes we saw Lee Trundle's first bit of magic, but his left foot shot was well saved by Shane Higgs in the Cheltenham goal.

Five minutes later the Swans really should have scored. From a corner a low shot by Karl Connolly beat Higgs in goal but re-bounded off the post into the path of Stuart Jones. Under pressure, but only eight yards out, he hit the shot over the bar.

Graham Poll had let the game flow at every opportunity and was having an excellent game giving the games one and only yellow card to Cheltenham's Michael Duff after a poor challenge on Maylett. Intelligently he let the game proceed with Swans attacking, booking the offending player only when the ball went out of play.

On seventy minutes Swans made their first substitution. Personally I felt Karl Connolly was by now right out of the game, and I felt James Thomas could have played wide left to support Nugent and Trundle. Brian Flynn chose to take off Kevin Nugent and gave the Trundle and Thomas partnership twenty minutes.

Five minutes later Swans were forced into another substitution when the excellent Lenny Johnrose pulled up with what looked like hamstring problems. He was replaced at left-back by Jonathan Coates. The left-back position must now be jinxed with the injury situation involving Michael Howard, Leon Hylton and now Lenny.

For the last fifteen minutes, we huffed and puffed but never really looked like scoring.

So it's three games without a goal, and it seems that if teams do their homework on us, man mark Lee Trundle closely and have a decent left back they will get something out of the game.


Freestone – 6 – A couple of good saves but distribution.....well it's not the best!
S. Jones – 5 – A poor game, seems to be lacking confidence.
Johnrose – 8 – Excellent, battled for everything.
Iriekpen – 6 – Difficult battle against the difficult Spencer
O'Leary – 6 – Did ok but far too many wayward balls forward.
Maylett – 5 – Disappointing again.
Britton – 7 – Never gave up, the pick of a poor midfield.
Martinez – 6 – Poor start but got better second half.
Connolly – 5 – Drifted right out of things, still doesn't look fit enough.
Nugent – 5 – Poor service, but won very few aerial challenges today.
Trundle – 6 – Better second half, but lacked support all afternoon.

Thomas – 5 – Further proof that his partnership with Trundle doesn't work.
Coates – 6 – Did quite well at full back, and may be forced to play there next week.

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