Match report

Swansea City 3 v 0 Barnet

Swansea easily swept aside a very poor Barnet outfit in another frozen Vetch encounter. Jan Molby picked a very attacking team, that lined up as 4-3-3 but were 2-5-3 for most of the game with both Jones and Moreira pushing up into attack from the full back positions.

		Freestone
Jones	  Walker  Edwards  Moreira
     Penney   Molby   Ampadu
     Brown    Torpey   Thomas

Subs: Clode, Coates, Jenkins (all used in final 5 mins.)

Swansea started well but despite peppering the Barnet goal, had to wait until 25 minutes for the opener. A forward ball was brought down by Torpey 25 yards from goal and neatly passed to Thomas who in the same movement slid a perfect through ball into the edge of the area for Brown to outsprint the defence and slot the ball past the advancing keeper.

This was no more than Swansea deserved as they tried to play attractive passing football on a very treacherous surface. Barnet's tactics were to pack the defence with 8 men and just hoof the ball into the air at every opportunity.

The second half followed much the same pattern as the first with Swansea making all the running. From one of the rare Barnet attacks the ball broke to Moreira in the left back position and from there the ball was sweetly inter-passed along the North Bank flank to Brown just inside the Barnet area. His well driven shot looked destined for goal but it struck Ampadu on the way. Ampadu was first to react to this ricochet and he dispatched an equally well drilled shot into the net from 10 yards.

Choruses of "We beat the scum 3-1" rang around the ground and Barnet at last came forward in search of a goal. The Swansea defence never looked in any trouble and there was now more room for the attack-minded Swans to exploit at the Barnet end.

From one such sojourn, Thomas clashed with a Barnet defender who went in for a little afters. Thomas responded by attempting to head-butt the miscreant and as chants of "Psycho" reverberated around ground, he was shown the red card.

This capped an evening of ineptitude by the dimunitive referee who was ably assisted by his equally pathetic assistants (linesmen as they used to be called). He had only minutes earlier waved away penalty appeals when Penney was chopped down from behind in the box after bursting through into a goalscoring position.

Just on the final whistle, Torpey (I think) shot at goal from 18 yards and the ball was deflected by the hand of the challenging defender. This time the penalty was awarded and Penney with his customary blaster, hit the ball into the net.

At last a performance whereby we imposed our superiority over the opposition by scoring more than the odd goal. Roll on Saturday and Leyto O.