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Match Report |
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Southampton 2 Swansea City 2 | |
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Southampton 2- 2 Swansea City Match Report by Clive Alabaster, Match Pictures by Andrew Thomas Around 3000 Jacks were in buoyant mood at the impressive St Mary’s stadium to take on a Southampton side in the midst of a crisis. However, 30 years of supporting the Swans has taught me never to assume the outcome of a Swansea match, no matter what the current form may be. Swansea lined up as: DeVries Rangel Williams Monk Tate Allen Britton Gomez The Swans did not settle well and conceded an early free kick on the edge of the area. Although the free kick came to nothing it was an early indication of Southampton’s willingness to get at us and attack the heart of our defence. After a scrappy first 12 minutes, Southampton won the game’s first corner which Swansea defended with two crucial blocks to deny Southampton a goal. Swansea were attempting their passing game but Southampton broke this up with tackles, interceptions and challenges which meant we never achieved our normal fluency. In fact, the early exchanges were characterised by several dicey moments in our defence.
On 18 minutes, Monk had an aberration which will haunt him: on being closed down by Southampton’s Saganowski, he intended to knock the ball back to DeVries but actually ended up barely tapping the ball a yard or so. Saganowski was on to it immediately and bore down on DeVries. After much weaving in and out of some desperate defenders (at one point it almost looked as if he had been shut out but still we conspired to gift wrap the opportunity to the Southampton player), Saganowski buried the ball into the back of the Swansea net and the home support came to life. Two minutes later and there was more panic in the Swansea defence and it was Williams who came to the rescue with a last-ditch block to prevent a nailed on second goal. Our defence was wobbling and our midfield was lacking bite. Southampton were, shall we say, very robust in the challenge and often had a man available to pick up the loose ball and any wayward passes. And there were plenty of those; Tate being the main culprit. On about the half-hour mark, the referee finally produced his yellow card following a late challenge on Orlandi. Following this, Swansea composed themselves and enjoyed a good period of dominance. Swansea then produced the best move of the game down the left hand flank. The ball was passed into Scotland who laid it off perfectly to Gomez’ path on the overlap. He advanced central to the goal and drilled the ball neatly to the right of Davis and into the corner of the net from 20 yards.
However, our defensive jitters were not done with as we continued to give possession away in dangerous positions. This time the linesman’s flag thwarted the Southampton attacker as he bore down on DeVries. However, we also looked potent in attack. Gower worked hard on the left to deliver a cross but to no avail. Swansea did have the ball in the back of the net once more but Scotland’s effort was ruled out for an earlier off-side. Swansea started the second half more positively. Scotland found himself in acres of space along the Southampton bye-line but his cut-back towards Orlandi was intercepted and cleared. There also followed a succession of dreadful fouls on Britton (twice) and Gomez. The last of these resulted in a second yellow card and hence a red card for Southampton’s Molyneux. Swansea started to exert some serious pressure now. Southampton got the substitutions merry go round under way and Swansea soon followed suit. On the hour mark Pintado came on for Gower and it didn’t take him long to make his mark on the game. In spite of Tate’s wayward passes, he was also mounting some effective attacking moves. With Tuesday nights 25 yarder against Preston still fresh in everyone’s mind there were the comical shouts of “shoooot” every time he strode forward. And in the 64th minute he duly obliged with another pile-driver which Davis parried away into the path of Pintado who was following up and finished off the job. At 2-1 up against 10-man Southampton it should have been game-over, however, Southampton were still attacking dangerously and Swansea were defending shakily.
More substitutions followed including a welcome return for Butler in place of Allen, who had not been as effective as in recent games. The referee had cause to lecture players from both sides following more “robust” play from Southampton and a measure of retaliation from Swansea. Following the resultant free kick to Southampton, the ball was played over the Swans defence and it was that man Saganowski again who beat the off-side trap. DeVries came out to meet the threat but left himself totally stranded and Saganowski lobbed him comfortably for the equaliser. The remaining 15 minutes were now completely dominated by Swansea’s attack as Southampton sought to defend the 2-2. Pintado planted a free header into the grateful hands of Davis. Tate glanced a header from a corner into the side netting and Ashley Williams was denied a headed goal from point blank range by some miracle of defending. Swansea pressed forward time after time and exerted intense pressure but could not find the opening. Southampton’s backs-to-the-wall defending eventually paid off as the final whistle was blown on a 2-2 draw.
Southampton will be happy to have salvaged a point given that they played much of the second half with 10 men. Swansea failed to reach the heights of recent performances. Naturally, many will be wondering to what extent we missed Pratley. Our weaknesses today were largely due to some uncharacteristic hesitancy in defence (Williams being the very definite exception to this), and our failure to dominate midfield. Southampton had done their homework and worked hard to shut us down and challenge us early and unceremoniously in midfield. Both of these are Pratley’s strengths, so, yes, we missed him. Whether we cope remains to be seen but for today, at least, a 2-2 draw was a fair but disappointing result. Southampton 2- 2 Swansea City Match Comments by Dave Williams, Match Pictures by Andrew Thomas
For what it's worth, my take on yesterday's game: After the consistent level we've played at for the last month or so, it was inevitable that, at some stage, we would fail to match that and yesterday was that time. For a team quite rightly praised for its excellent passing, so many passes yesterday, especially in the first half, found Southampton players that you could believe that some of our players thought we were playing in red & white stripes.
Both of their goals were very soft indeed and down to our errors more than their endeavour. The first, an underhit backpass by Monk was pounced upon by Sikorski and having rounded Dorus, for some reason decided to stop and run rings around a couple more before side footing into the corner of the net. The second, a long ball down their left caught us asleep and Dorus came and stopped and was left stranded and I think I would have been able to calmly lob the ball over him into an unguarded net with no defender anywhere in sight. Our goals had a bit more guile about them. A good move down the left ended with the ball reaching Gomez unmarked on the edge of the box and he had time to pick his spot low into the bottom left corner from about the same place as he scored from against Preston.
Our second came from another Tate belter. Just like he did against Preston he came down the left wing, cut inside and unleashed another shot destined for the far corner. Unlike Preston though, the keeper was able to parry it and, while every other player on the pitch played statues, Pintado rushed in and smashed the ball into the net with the keeper still on the floor. Most of our players seemed to be at about 70% of what they have been recently. For me Gomez stood our and was involved in just about everything good that we did. I liked his way of dropping deep just in front of the defence where he could pick the ball up in acres of space and start things moving with a bit of time on his side, a bit like Ferrie does. Gomez either played better than lately or maybe he just hadn't let his standards drop like the rest. 2-1 up against 10 men, we really should have seen this game off but we were not at our best and Southampton looked like they were under instruction to rough us up and it worked. They forced (quite literally at times) their way back into the game and got the lucky break they needed.
After beating four good teams in Burnley, Reading, Portsmouth & Preston, maybe on the day we thought a game against a team in the bottom 3 with only 1 home win all season and loads of off-field problems was going to be easy and we just didn't start with the intensity needed to be ourselves as Roberto would probably say and never got into top gear at any stage. Even so, we still probably should have seen this game off. On the plus side, another away point and our unbeaten run stretched to 14. Roberto started with probably the best side he could with those available. Pratley was clearly missed but I still think we could and should have won quite comfortably if all of our players had simply played better. Far too many had an off day with Monk, Williams and Tate all playing some very sloppy passes in the first half that put us under pressure and gave Saints all the encouragement they needed. Had we passed and kept the ball properly like we can, I think they would have become discouraged and been far less likely to feel they could get anything from the game. QPR will be a different proposition altogether as they are doing well at the moment. Another performance like yesterday and we will get beaten. However, if we raise our game against good teams like we have for the last month, then who knows, we will probably win. Such is football. Having Dyer back in will be a massive plus as his pace was clearly missed yesterday as it has been for most of the season.
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