This was a disappointing come down after our 1-2 victory over Preston on Friday and our first loss in five games. Maybe it’s not surprising we couldn’t keep the momentum up, given that Koki Saito dislocated his shoulder in the last match and Paul Smyth has been given a retrospective three-match ban for violent conduct. And, to be fair, Swansea are one of the in-form teams in the Championship, having won four of the previous five coming into this. But even so. After a lively start, we looked pretty dismal in the first half, not managing a single shot and scoring an own goal. Things only improved in the last 25 minutes of the game after some late substitutions by Martí Cifuentes, but we were already two goals down at that point so getting one back, which Karamoke Dembélé did in the 72nd minute, wasn’t enough. The only memorable thing about the game was the debut of Emmerson Sutton, an 18 year-old development squad player, who came on for Min-Hyeok Yang in the 67th minute. Unfortunately, he didn’t really get a chance to show us what he can do.
Going by the team sheet published before the game, Martí was only intending to make two changes to the starting line-up against Preston, playing Nicolas Madsen out on the left in place of Saito, bringing in Lucas Andersen in the No 10 role, starting Rayan Kolli up front and moving Yang out to the right. But when the team came on, there was no sign of Jonathan Varane, who must have injured himself in the warm-up. So Ronnie Edwards was paired with Jack Colback in defensive midfield and Morgan Fox replaced the Southampton loanee at centre back. That means we lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation as follows: Paul Nardi in goal; Jimmy Dunne, Liam Morrison, Fox and Harrison Ashby in the back line; Colback and Edwards in front of them; Yang, Andersen and Madsen as the attacking trio; and Kolli leading the line.
The first five minutes were fast and furious, with each side seemingly intent on getting an early goal. But when the game settled into a normal rhythm, we struggled to beat their high press and whenever we lost it in our half they suddenly had players swarming around our box. Their goal in the 29th minute came from one of these quick turnarounds, although Morgan Fox got the final touch, making it his second own-goal of the season according to Charlie. That was frustrating, but given that our xG in the first half was 0.00, going in at half time one-nil down wasn’t undeserved.
I thought Ashby had done alright in the first half and there’s no denying he’s improved a lot in the last few games, but Cifuentes replaced him with Kenneth Paal in the 53rd minute and, at the same time, brought on Michael Frey for Lucas Andersen. We immediately looked a little better, but we were caught on the break in the 55th minute and Harry Darling managed to scramble it in over the line during a goal mouth melée. Three minutes later, they almost scored again, with Liam Cullen being denied by Nardi, and the visiting fans started rubbing our faces in it. Meanwhile, our supporters started chanting: “Two-nil down, gives a fuck? We’re QPR and we’re staying up.”
But in the 66th minute, Martí brought on Dembélé for Kolli – something he should have done earlier – and we suddenly started to motor. He then replaed Yang with Sutton and five minutes later Dembélé scored our only goal of the game. Madsen got the assist and it was a beauty – a forward pass that beat the last man, enabling Dembélé to run on to it and beat the keeper at his near post from a tight angle. Madsen’s improvement in the last few games, getting three assists by my reckoning, has been good to see, given that he’s definitely going to be around next term.
Suddenly, it looked like we might get something out of this one after all, and Cifuentes kept the momentum going by replacing Madsen with Ilias Chair, back from injury, two minutes later. For the next 20 minutes or so, including the eight minutes of added time, we looked the stronger team, but the Swans proved to be masters of the dark arts, slowing the game down by faking injuries every time we looked as though we were about to get on top. The referee looked on sceptically, but did precious little about it. The closest we came to scoring was Chair’s curling, right-footed shot from outside the box in the 79th minute that was successfully blocked.
So, not the penultimate home game of the season we wanted, particularly after showing signs of life in the last few matches. But, to be fair, many of our first team players are injured and even at full strength we’ve only beaten a team higher than 11th – which is where Swansea were coming in to this game – once. We’re now 15th, with Burnley up next in a week’s time. Let’s hope the Clarets are on the beach by then and the Hoops will finally give us something to celebrate at Loftus Road.
You can watch the highlights on Sky here
'twas rather painful