Swansea City expert, Jacob Cristobal will be doing a weekly segment for Inside Spanish Football, where he will be catching us up on all things related to our Spanish brothers, Swansea City. A lesson in humility Not that itâs a bad thing to have confidence going into the opening fixture of the season. Hell I expect any and all teams to have it otherwise they have no business being there. Swansea City sure had the confidence going into their match with the reigning Premier League champions Manchester United as they comfortably handled Swedish side Malmo FF in Europa League qualification. Any team would gladly like to have two competitive matches under their belt as opposed to pre-season friendlies and the general thought was maybe it gave the Swans an edge, enough to possibly steal a win. That said, attacking and defending against a Swedish side that ran over a Scottish side is far different than attacking and defending against the reigning champions. This is what was in front of Swansea, and how did the Spaniards that are becoming synonymous with the Welsh side was this: Defenders Chico Flores & Angel Rangel had a bad outing. It wasnât just them as the entire defensive unit just had one of those days in the office. The experience of Manchester Unitedâs wingers and the ever-dangerous Robin van Persie showed why they are the reigning champions as they took advantage of the fact the back four were not clicking all that well with goalkeeper Michel Vorm. Midfielder Jose Canas, one of the new Spaniards coming from Real Betis made his Premier League debut in a fashion that I can only best describe as, âWell how about that.â Canas picked up a yellow three minutes into the match on a silly challenge and the following ten minutes was all about him being welcomed into the league proper, as he was on the receiving end on a couple challenges. Once that was settled with, Canas did his part along with Jonjo Shelvey & Leon Britton to showcase the world Swanseaâs possession play. Really for the first half hour, it looked to be that Swansea were to capture a goal or two as they had Manchester United on the backpedal. But as we all know, there are no guarantees in football. Canas would be subbed out in the 77th minute for Korean Ki Sung-Yeung. As for one of the darlings of last seasonâs summer transfer window, Michu was still his ever persistent threat to Manchester Unitedâs center backs and goal. This seasonâs acquisition of Ivorian Wilfried Bony was to take pressure off Michu who lit up the Premier League scoring charts with his 18 league goals. Though Bony came on to start the second half, had his presence been there to start, we could be talking about a completely different narrative to the match. So far the partnership between the two is working and can only get better over the next few months. It was just the case of that final ball not connecting to Michu, though there were plenty of opportunities. Fact is, Unitedâs Vidic & Ferdinand are quality defenders and itâs never an easy task going up against them. Winger Pablo Hernandez also made an appearance, coming on along with Bony in the second half and he looked good in doing his part to help get that final ball in on Swanseaâs attack. In the end, Iâll repeat what I said: attacking and defending against a Swedish side is one thing, attacking and defending against the reigning Premier League champions is completely different. Swansea return to qualifying for the Europa League this Thursday as they face Romanian side FC Petrolul Ploiești in the first leg at The Liberty Stadium. Itâs likely weâll see some more of Swanseaâs Spaniards get the start, if not solid minutes, like Jordi Amat, Pablo Hernandez, and Alejandro Pozuelo. After Thursdayâs fixture, they resume play in the Premiership, traveling to White Hart Lane to take on Tottenham Hotspur which will likely feature former Valencia striker Roberto Soldado.
Fair post - as I say to my friends in Spain and Latin America - we're the best Spanish club outside Spain.
