 |
Match report |
|
Kidderminster 2 Swansea City 0 | |
|
A look around Kidderminsters Ground Aggborough.
Match report by the Gigg Family - Pictures supplied by Andrew Thomas
After the mass exodus from Swansea last week around 700 made the trip to Kidderminster this afternoon. However after the poor League form over the last few months this is still a creditable turn out.  Another must win game after the Swans let two points drift away on Wednesday. Kris O'Leary failed to recover from injury, and Leon Hylton kept his place ahead of Michael Howard. Freestone Byrne – Jones – Tate – Hylton Maylett – Britton – Martinez – Robinson Trundle – Nugent Subs – Murphy – Howard – Coates – Corbisiero – Pritchard
Kidderminster started with former Swans player John Williams on the bench, together with Bo Henriksen who always seems to play well against us. The game was preceded with a well-respected minute's silence for a Swansea boy, and footballing legend John Charles. A scrappy opening few minutes saw efforts from Britton and Maylett, and most of Kidderminster's attacks stopped by the linesman's flag as they consistently fell into the Swans' offside trap. Even at an early stage, Kidderminster looked a poor Third Division side and lacked confidence. On twenty minutes, Swans had the first 'serious' shot of the game with a right foot drive from Roberto Martinez just wide of the post.  Five minutes later, the Swans almost took the lead with an Andy Robinson free-kick which was tipped over by goalkeeper, Stuart Brock. On thirty-seven minutes after a sustained period of attack, Andy Robinson was clearly pushed over by the centre-half, everyone seemed to have seen the incident other than referee Nigel Miller. Kidderminster came back into things with their first serious shot on forty-two minutes from Christiansen which was hit firmly and appeared goalbound until Tate brilliantly chested the ball away for a corner. Half-time arrived and the Swans would surely be disappointed to go in 0-0 against a Kidderminster side lacking confidence with more effort, especially upfront, three points seemed there for the taking. A word about the half-time refreshments, which were superb. A choice of burgers, hot dogs, shepherds pie, steak pie, and lamb and stuffing rolls. Premiership food in Division Three! With the Swans again looking the better side at the start of the second half, Kidderminster surprisingly almost took the lead on fifty-five minutes when a far post corner was watched by the entire Swans defence Christiansen headed the ball down and Ian Foster shot low down to Roger's left, thankfully Roger's reactions were good. 
On fifty-six minutes Jonathan Coates replaced the disappointing Maylett. This should have been a game for Maylet to shine as he was up against a none too convincing full back, and saw plenty of the ball, but he never got into it.  The game ended with barely half of the Swans fans left in the ground. I have never felt such anger amongst Swans fans making their way back to their cars and buses. They, I am sure, felt cheated by such an inept and characterless performance. Both the players and management face an uncomfortable few days. Many more performances like today and we will be in trouble in May once again. With the quality of players we have at the club, that is unforgivable. Freestone – 4 – Dreadful error for goal, became the butt of jeering from home fans for his kicking and error. Byrne – 6 – Continues to improve. Tate – 8 – Outstanding first half, and only guilty of trying to do too much in the second half. Jones – 6 – Second fiddle to outstanding Tate, and lost his head second half when shambolic performance of others spread throughout. Hylton – 3 – I am afraid to say, but he never looked interested – hardly seemed to cross the halfway line, and after his cameo against Preston a few weeks back, it's difficult to comprehend. Maylett – 4 – Under Brian Flynn's lopsided system, the wide man will always come under the microscope. Again poor control, lack of fight and effort. Martinez – 5 – Still well short of the player of last season/early this season – not able to lift the head of those around him at present. Britton – 7 – Best midfield player on the pitch, created several openings for himself but his lack of composure in front of goal proved costly. Robinson – 5 – Poor game, plenty of effort but ran into trouble time and time again. Trundle – 3 – Dreadful game, never really looked interested. Nugent – 4 – Target of the boo boys, hardly won a header and ridiculous challenge could have got him a red card. Subs: Coates – 5 – Plenty of effort but never a threat. Brian Flynn has really got his work cut out now; he has put his faith in certain players who are letting him down. His talk of new players coming in must start to produce results. He has very few options in reserve. Karl Connolly and Kieron Durkan both have far too many injuries, and seem unlikely to feature. James Thomas seems a shadow of the player he was early last year. The one player who may make a difference at present is Lenny Johnrose. But a new face is needed if our season isn't to end in February. Brian Flynn is currently making a point of the team being “his” team. Many more performances like today and it is likely to be someone else's. 
Match report By Clive Alabaster - Pictures supplied by Andrew Thomas
After an immaculately observed minute's silence in memory of John Charles the Swans lined up as follows: 
In the second half Kidderminster came out of their shell and even their fans woke up. They started to create a few chances and Swansea were losing the advantage. What happened next will haunt Roger for the rest of the season. Under no particular pressure he came out to collect a rolling ball only to fumble it horribly. Foster, the Kiddie attacker who had all but given up the chase, pounced on the ball which Roger had conveniently pushed under his body towards the unguarded goal whilst he sprawled helplessly on the ground. Naturally, Foster walked it into the net and I detected a ripple of noise from the home support. It would have been comical if it hadn't been so tragic. Let us spare a thought for poor Roger, though; yes, it was a howler, schoolboy error; he knows that. There's no explanation, every player occasionally does something embarrassingly awful, shit happens!  When it came, the final whistle was a merciful relief. Only Tate managed a rather half-hearted acknowledgement of the faithful who had made the trip. I even found myself apologising to my brother who I had picked up from Cheltenham on the way to the game. Flynn will now have to earn his money to re-instil the confidence in the team which has deserted them now and yet was so abundant back in September. A friend and neighbour recently asked me if I could explain the remarkable difference in a team who was struggling to avoid relegation last season to one who was topping the division this time around; on the evidence of today – nothing! Kidderminster 2 Swansea City 0Match report by Clive, Gareth & David Hughes - Pictures supplied by Andrew Thomas
We commented in the Tranmere report that we couldn’t get into a pub for a drink well today we did, and coming out into the cold air had thoughts of going back in. Read the report and decide if we made the right decision.  Injuries again dictated team changes, as we lined up
Freestone
Byrne, Jones, Tate & Hylton Maylett, Britton, Martinez & Robinson. Trundle & Nugent. A pretty dismal first half was punctuated by a couple of Robinson free kicks. The opening 20 mins was mostly the Swans without troubling Kidderminster. Much the same can be said for Kidderminster who came more into the game on the half hour mark again without any trouble for our defence. Plenty of huff & puff but NO football. We did pressurise in the last 5 mins but never had the cutting edge to covert it into a goal. Half time chat was that we only needed to step up a gear and the game was there to be won. Well a gear change did happen but we went into reverse. Abysmal is to good a word for our second half showing. Kidderminster came out a completely different team and were in overdrive. They closed space and players down, while we stood and watched waiting for things to happen. Coates replaced Maylett to try and bring some industry to the game. Even though they now totally dominated the game, there was as yet no chance of them taking the lead. That is until we gifted them the opener. Rog came out towards the right hand corner of the area to pick up a ball, problem was he picked up, fumbled as the ball went past him to be put into an empty net by Foster. It was a goal that matched our second half display comical. Thinking that we might react to the jolt lasted about 30 secs as we gave the ball away from the kick off. Kidderminster were now rampant as any semblance of shape we might have had disintegrated. We were chasing shadows all over the pitch. With only Robinson giving us an outlet with his runs from midfield, things got from worse to worse. Kidderminster soon nullified these as due to his lack of pace only resulted in him picking up defenders until he was overpowered by 3 to 4 players. Where was the support? With no thoughts that we could ever get back into the game Kidderminster got a deserved second, when a cross from our left was met centre goal be Christianson who directed his header into the corner of the net. There was no way back not even with a miracle. We played out the rest of the game a total shambles. The highlight, being 2 mins from the end, when Nugent went in late on the keeper but not making any contact. It was the Swans fans that led the chant of ‘Off’ ‘Off’. After 2 mins of added time the game was brought to a thankful end. A couple of half applause from players on the half-way line were met with boos, but to his credit Alan Tate did come half-way down the pitch to applaud the fans.  Very little can be taken from this performance. Robinson & Britton battled throughout although Britton tired visibly. Coates did add something when he was brought on. Roger apart from his give away goal did pull off a couple of good saves. Tate did try and keep the defence together. Jones and Byrne kept going but their inexperience showed. Now the questions, as MANY MANY heart searching questions MUST be asked. Why did we play such a young inexperienced back four who had not played together before. Howard was an option to add experience. Why especially in the second half were we outrun by Kidderminster who looked yards fitter. What was our game plan as the team had no shape. We have heard that the emphasise in training is 5 a side matches. This may well be true as today we played 5 a side on a full pitch. We continue to try and play 3 yard touch passes from the edge of our area, WHY The game is 11 players v 11 players, why were Kidderminster able to put 3 players onto every 1 of ours. Why when we were not even chasing the game at 2-0 did we not throw Corbisiero and Pritchard on just to get some experience. To do nothing was a crime. It has been patently obvious that we lack strength in the team, the spine is weak. We need a strong centre half, a destroyer in midfield and a strong partner up front for Trundle.  In saying a partner for Trundle. On today’s showing he does not deserve his place. Whilst he is a game winner, he must get more involved when things aren’t going so well. The performances (hidden by the cup run ) over the last 4 months have been unacceptable. The current thought is that players cannot dig deep to improve performances. 3 wins in 17 league games 9 without scoring. So to end with most of the comments have been ‘on pitch’ What is happening off it. We have seen very little that looks as it has come from the training ground. The club has taken great strides, but we could end the season in exactly the same position as last season. Whilst the skill factor of the squad has improved, where are the battling qualities. The pre-match huddle shows unity. Unity should result in support play for team mates. Have we got unity. The words of Brian Flynn last night were ‘This is a must win game’ Sorry Brian words are cheap. We can read and we can see. Today made those words laughable. Where on earth do we go from here. Back to the question at the start of the report. The answer is ??????? One more positive 750 approx fans there today, and another face to a name on the Internet. Dave Williams from Shropshire Would you like your match report printed here? Email it to the site straight after the match. Click here to return to the main page. |
|
