Match report

I thought my days of travelling by bus to away games by bus were behind me. But the decision of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary to ban fans travelling independently meant a 28 coach convoy, with 1500 Jacks leaving the Liberty Stadium around 11.15 am.

A convoluted route saw us met by a small army of police officers and vehicles on an Industrial Estate outside Avonmouth. Our bus left with 7 or 8 outriders proceeding us and we had clear passage through the remainder of the journey with the Police blocking off all roundabouts and traffic lights to give us priority. Just what were they expecting? Do we really need this type of protection? The policing was more akin to a game between Hamas United and Jerusalem F.C.

In recent games Swans have been unable to finish teams off after dominating the first halves of games. When we played Bristol City earlier in the season it took us 45 minutes to score the first and we proceeded to score another 6 in the second half.

Today Swans introduced yet another new signing in Rory Fallon and also gave a first start to Steve Watt. Kenny Jackett was forced into further changes with Alan Tate failing to recover from a knock and Sam Ricketts suffering with flu.

Our weakness appeared to be on the flanks with Izzy Iriekepen and Kevin Austin playing full backs. Leon Knight would have been disappointed to be on the bench after making a big impact in his first few games, and the decision to drop Leon Britton for Adrian Forbes had more than a few fans scratching their heads.

Side- Gueret, Iriekepen, Monk, Watt, Austin, Britton, Martinez, Robinson, Williams, Fallon, Trundle. Subs Murphy, Way, Britton, Knight, Akinfenwa.

Swans dominated the early minutes and Bristol almost gifted Swans the opening goal with a woeful back pass that Bristol goalkeeper Adriano Basso only just got to before Lee Trundle.

On Bristol's first serious attack they really should have taken the lead. Garry Monk was dispossessed on the edge of the penalty area by David Cotterill who then rounded Willy and with the goal open he passed the ball goal ward rather than putting his foot behind the ball and this allowed Kevin Austin to make ground to clear the ball off the line.

The ice cold temperature made for a difficult surface with several players having difficulty maintaining their balance. Referee Mr Penton made little allowance for this booking Garry Monk for an early challenge.

Bristol City were running at our full backs at will and there appeared little defensive support from our midfield.

Going forward it wasn't long before we started to run out of ideas with the high ball to Rory Fallon seemingly the only option open to us. In fairness to Fallon he was winning the majority of aerial challenges but lacked any kind of support.

Steve Watt became the second players booked for a poor challenge from behind.

On the half hour Swans had a cast iron penalty turned aside by Mr Penton. Williams beat his man easily and his cross from the left wing was deflected for a corner by the outstretched arm of full back Bradley Orr.

Swans only created one further chance in the first half with a Roberto Martinez free kick headed by Fallon, flicked on by Andy Robinson and Lee Trundle with his back to goal did his trademark turn and shot that Basso did well to keep out.

In first half injury time Tom Williams lost possession just outside the Bristol City box, he chased back and brought Orr down with another poor challenge. Orr reacted and seemed to catch Williams in the face with his boot, sparking some handbags at dawn. Mr Penton took the easy option booking both players and adding the name of Martinez for dissent.

Within a minute Andy Robinson became the 5th Swans booking mistiming a challenge 35 yards out from the Swansea goal. The free kick was floated aimlessly toward the 6 yard line and should have been claimed By Willy Gueret. He seemed to dwell on his line allowing Louis Carey to bundle the ball in form 5 yards.

It had been a below par performance in the first half from Swansea but it was about to get worse.

The second half was little short of pitiful from the Swans point of view. Izzy Iriekepen became the 6th Swans player booked.

Kenny Jackett tried to change things around with Steve Watt replaced by Leon Britton. This saw Leon going to right back and Izzy moving to his more accustomed centre back role. Roberto Martinez also made way for Darren Way. It was surprising not to see either Forbes or in particular Trundle replaced with the game now passing each of them by.

Darren Way almost scored with his first touch with an excellent shot from 20 yards that Basso mishandled and eventually turned behind for a corner with Lee Trundle bearing down on him.

Darren Way became the 7th Swans player booked, this time for dissent. A quickly taken free kick found him in space but Mr Penton inexplicitly called play back for the kick to be retaken. Way reacted by throwing the ball into the ground.

With 10 minutes to go Scott Murray should have put the game beyond Swansea. Garry Monk and Kevin Austin were cut to ribbons on the left and Willy Gueret was dragged toward the near post to narrow the angle. The ball was rolled across the 6 yard line to Murray and his snapshot came back off the bar then hit Izzy, who knew nothing about it, and rolled just past the post for a corner.

Adrian Forbes was replaced by Leon Knight who went right midfield and at this stage Lee Trundle must have wondered what he needed to do to be substituted.

Tom Williams, who had drifted right out of the came received his 2nd yellow card seven minutes from time. He was harshly adjudged to have fouled Bas Savage but seemed to overreact to the decision and was shown the 2nd yellow and red card by Mr Penton.

With 10 men their was no way back for Swans. This had been a dreadful performance from the Swans against an ordinary Bristol side. We played decent football for about 5 minutes then again lost our way.

Lee Trundle in particular had a shocking game and by the end he was playing or rather standing 25 yards from Rory Fallon who was continuing to win a good share of headers and flick ons but there was nobody close enough to take advantage.

Ratings-

Gueret 5- looked to be at fault for the goal and his kicking out was even worse than usual.

Iriekepen 5 - Just not a right back.
Monk 6 - Started poorly but better second half.
Watt 5 - Big and strong but too easily got involved in personal battles and lucky not to be send off by an appalling referee.
Austin 6- Excellent early goal line clearance but lacks pace these days to play full back.

Forbes 5- Not really sure why Kenny Jackett thought he was a better option than Leon Britton. Lack of any other option than knock ball past man and then run into him.
Martinez 5 - A long way off his best.
Robinson 7 - Never stopped trying.
Williams 5 - Decent first half but went missing second half.

Fallon 6- Decent debut. Won plenty of headers but never given any service form out wide.
Trundle3 - When he's good, he's very, very good and when he's bad he's rotten.

Subs-
Britton 6 - Did O.K in unaccustomed role.
Way 7 - All action in the middle of the park, did more good work in 30 minutes than Roberto had done in 60.
Knight 6 - I'm sure Kenny would feel with hindsight he should have started.


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