Just got back home. Poor first half. Second half started brighter because the introduction of Barrow gave us more width and dynamism. But Fer for Leon was the real game-changer. He gave height and physical strength to the midfield - whilst his pass to Gylfi for the goal was superb. Nervy moments towards the end but held out. A win is a win. Draw at Bournemouth & beat Villa could be enough - but then we'd have 7 games to get 3 points.
Quite enjoyed the second half, although the first half was extremely poor. I thought Fer and Kingsley should have started so was glad Fer came on and played well. Quality player. With regards the ref, I thought he did well first half but he was crap second. Bottled a few decisions that could have cost us. Gomis is useless. Couldn't believe he came on for Ayew either. From around the 70 mark Routledge look knackered and should have been taken off around the 80 mark for anyone but Gomis. 10 mins he's on the pitch and he's blowing out of his hoop. Disgrace of a player and that's without the hopelessness he showed in front of goal. Loses the ball and to him that's the end of it even though the balls 2 yards away. Doesn't even enter his mind to chase the ball and win it back. Chuffed with the win though. Best villa and we're safe (if we're not already).
As well as the £12m, we also got a revitalised Gylfi. He has been excellent since Jonjo left - anyone else notice the link?
There was a rumour that Jonjo stuck the wood in gylfi during training a while ago. So it could be that him going gave gylfi a lift
Just got back and thought the first have was as poor as it gets and that was both teams. My worry is if Guidolin comes back and keeps playing as narrow as we were in the first half the last 9 games are going to be long and boring. I thought the Introduction of Barrow not only lifted the team nut the fans as well and you can feel the buzz when he gets on the ball, end product not quite there yet but going to be and even Rangel looked more comfortable having him there. I thought the decision to take of Paloschi was right as he was awful apart from one good ball, but to be fair he didn't have much service. Fer was excellent when he came on, seems to be carrying a bit of coal, but that will come off and he looks a great signing, I was impressed with how excited he got when we scored. Just a shame we went a bit deep after the goal and didn't keep the pressure on as they were vulnerable at that stage. All in all not pretty but the result was so important, Lastly I though Cork worked his socks off and doesn't get enough credit.
I look at Leicester and their players are no better than ours, bar they have two players who can score goals and lots of them. Oh to have a goalscorer in our side and actually get the ball in the box early to them.
I'm hoping that the Scousers will put 4 past Palace tomorrow, so that we can go above them to 15th............. Disappointed that Kingsley wasn't even on the bench today, the boy at least deserved that, and Taylor needs pushing out of his comfort zone, hope we see more of the lad soon.....
The main thing was that we won – and we did. Another huge step in the Swans survival campaign so plenty to cheer about in that respect. But what a poor quality match. To say it was a Championship level game would be disrespectful to the Championship. Individual errors all over the park by both teams, hoofball at a level not seen at the Liberty since we were in League 1 and an opposition who thought they had come to Wales to play rugby not football. Norwich were poor and will get relegated . We weren’t that much better but we’ve now pulled two straight victories out of the hat to ease, but not extinguish, the relegation fears. In the first half Paloschi and Ayew were ineffective and there was no edge to our game in the final third. For once we started the second half on the front foot, with Paloschi replaced by Barrow, Ayew moved up front and Leon Britton soon replaced by Leroy Fer. There was an instant zip about us and the goal was inevitable, Fer making an excellent assist to set up Sigurddson who stroked home coolly. The Swans were on top and looked able to dominate the next period of the game. We did so, but instead of upping the game to finish the Canaries off, we played pedestrian possession football. Yes, it denied Norwich possession and the chance to counter attack, but we didn’t put ourselves in a position to score the second. We played like Big Time Charlies. Barrow was a major culprit. Yes, he created one or two chances, but this was counterbalanced by him strolling around the pitch. That just wasn’t good enough. Yes, he may be our most potent winger at the moment, but we’ve had far better wingers than him in the not so distant past and the fans won’t accept it if he suddenly drops his standards. With five minutes to go we still only held a 1-0 lead. We were still in a position to drop two points and we nearly did so. Norwich made a last ditch attempt to secure a goal and nearly succeeded. We scraped over the line. We did it, so credit to the Swans for that. It’s been a huge couple of days with six points banked. We now travel to the South Coast and we will face a Bournemouth side in rampant form. We’ll need to up the pace of our game because we’ll be facing an all out assault from Eddie Howe’s Cherries next week.
Unless he was feeling the affects of the Arsenal game given the huge step up in quality and the work he put in?
