Swansea City 2 Yeovil 0 - Match Report by Nigel Gigg
Yeovil is a fixture that all Swans fans look forward to. With Swans top of the table and The Liberty Stadium packed to the rafters for our first evening kick off, tonight's visit was looked forward to with extra relish.
Yeovil have become a bit of a bogey team of late with Swans losing each of the last three encounters and have failed to score in any of them. The last Swans win was almost 2 years ago with a 3-2 win at the Vetch Field. It was a game I remember with mixed feelings. I was struggling with sciatica at the time and forced to listen to the first 60 minutes lying flat on my back at home. With Yeovil having pulled a goal back and trailing 2-1 I could bear it no longer. I dragged myself into the car to make the 20 minute journey to the Vetch and tried to hobble the last 100 yards on foot. By now it was 2-2. After covering about 50 yards in 5 minutes, I decided this was not such a good idea and started the long crawl back to the car at the same time as Swans grabbed the winner. The rest of the journey I had a skip in my heart if not my step.
Kenny Jackett kept faith with those that helped achieve the brilliant win at Southend with Roberto Martinez on the bench. The atmosphere prior to kick off was electric and it would have warmed the hearts of every Swans fan to see the stadium bursting at the seams.
Side- Gueret, Tate, Monk, Iriekepen, Ricketts, Britton, O'Leary, Jones, McLeod, Akinfenwa, Trundle. Subs- Austin, Robinson, Martinez, Forbes, Connor
Swansea had more of the ball in the early stages but Skiverton and Sodje were looking solid and thwarted Swansea's early attacks.
Yeovil were denying Swansea time on the ball and Paul Terry sitting in front of the Yeovil back four was breaking up most of Swansea's moves.
With fifteen minutes gone, a Swans corner was not dealt with and the ball bobbled around the six yard box before being cleared for a second corner. Again, Yeovil didn't deal with the corner and Swans looked to have a good shout for a penalty turned aside after the ball appeared to have struck a Yeovil defender's hand.
On twenty minutes, Lee Trundle produced a great run drifting outside three Yeovil defenders and after bursting into the box and about to shoot, was brought down by Sodje. Referee Mr. Stroud had no choice but to award the penalty and Trunds picked himself up to send Chris Weale in the Yeovil goal the wrong way.
It was good to see Sodje was human after he had had an excellent ninety minutes against us at Yeovil, and had started well again today.
On the half hour Swans looked to have doubled the lead. After excellent interplay between Leon Britton and Lee Trundle, Trunds looked up, spotted the keeper off his line and floated an exquisite chip from twenty-five yards that beat Weale, only to come back off the crossbar.
On the stroke of half time, the Swans goal had its first near miss. Willy Gueret claimed a cross easily but collided with Izzy Iriekpen on the way down spilling the ball to Sodje. Thankfully, Sodje's low cross across the box, with Willy and Izzy still on the ground, was cleared. Izzy received lengthy treatment after the clash.
Swans were good value for the one nil half time score although they had been far from fluent against a dogged Yeovil defence.
Izzy Iriekpen started the second half by gifting possession to Paul Jevons. Jevons dwelt on the ball on the edge of the box before Kris O'Leary dispossessed him to Izzy's relief. Sixty seconds later and Izzy unbelievably gave the ball away again, this time it was Willy who saved Izzy's blushes with a save.
Swans had not started the second half well and Arron Davies went close with another chance . With Yeovil building up a head of steam, it was a relief on fifty two minutes to see Yeovil reduced to ten men. Former Swans target Gary Johnson was yellow carded for a poor challenge on Alan Tate. As he retreated he made a gesture to the referee who promptly showed Johnson a second yellow and red card.
Swans soon made their numerical advantage tell, and cut Yeovil's defence to ribbons with a flowing move which saw Leon Britton skip down the wing and his pinpoint cross gave Owain Tudur Jones the perfect opportunity, but he totally mishit the shot. The ball fell to Lee Trundle who finished clinically only for the linesman's flag to deny him.
Yeovil were showing more endeavour with ten men, than they had shown first half with eleven. But on sixty six minutes it was Swans that got their second. Adebayo Akinfenwa put Weale under pressure and his clearance only reached Lee Trundle thirtyfive yards out of goal on the left wing. In a flash, Trunds lifted the ball over the hapless Weale. It was a Trundle classic.
Yeovil made a good fist of things and had as much of the game as Swansea.
With twelve minutes to go, Alan Tatereceived a nasty looking head wound and was replaced by Kevin Austin.
Terry Skiverton almost pulled one back for Yeovil with a snap shot that went just wide of Willy's post. Kevin McLeod then tried to bring Yeovil back into the game with a twenty yard header back to Willy that fell short and was picked up by Kevin Gall. He again was guilty of dwelling on the ball and Willy dived to snatch the ball off him.
Lee Trundle went off with a minute to go to a standing ovation. He was replaced by Paul Connor.
With the game well into injury time, the play was interrupted by a young lady streaker who was escorted off the pitch wearing a stewards jacket and a big grin.
Although tonight's game was no classic it was lit up by 3 or 4 magic moments from Trundle and his importance to this team was further underlined.
Gueret 7 - Good game and came to the rescue several times.
Tate 8 - Excellent in attack and defence.
Monk 8 - Makes a huge difference to the stability of the defence.
Iriekepen 6- Did well apart from a dreadful 60 seconds early in the second half.
Ricketts 7- After playing in Cyprus just 48 hours earlier did well tonight.
Britton 8- Usual committed performance.
O'Leary 8- Back at his best. All action, won possesion time and again.
Jones 6 - Not up with the pace first half, improved as the game went on.
McLeod 7- Caused them problems down the left all night.
Akinfenwa 6- Looked sluggish and not able to hold the ball up as well as normal
Trundle 9 - 3 or 4 pieces of sheer genius in another masterclass.
Subs
Austin 6 - Managed to get booked in his 10 minute cameo.
Connor - Only on 3 or 4 minutes.
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.
|
