LFL: SWANSEA

It says something that the best moment of the afternoon for me was when Samson the mascot effortlessly pawed away a penalty-kick from Dutch Sunderland fan Victoria during the half-time break. If we play like we played today in the play-offs, we’ll never get to Wembley. Hopefully Mundle and Jobe will be back by then to give us some spark.

BEFORE

The away match at Swansea back in December was probably the game I've enjoyed most this season as we powered back from a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2. Our midfield and Neil in particular were very powerful that day, in contrast to their performance against Norwich on Tuesday. I somehow doubt that the return fixture this afternoon will be as exciting as that December game but we have to maintain momentum now that a play-off spot has been guaranteed while at the same time not wearing out key players. So, I imagine we'll see a bit of rotation today. It's always great to see a player of Le Fee's class in our side, though he may well again be restricted to a substitute's role. Swansea are currently in fourteenth spot and have had mixed form recently, but they've won their last two. I'll be at the game and I think we're going to win so my match prediction is 2-1 to us.

In the early kick offs Leeds beat Preston 2-1 while Plymouth came from behind to beat Sheffield United by the same score, which was pleasing. I was in my seat in the Upper East Stand at 2:40pm and the weather was bright and sunny. There were three changes to Tuesday's starting line-up with Aleksic, Hjelde and Mayenda making way for Jones, Roberts and Isidor. Abdul Samed was back on the bench. My friends’ match predictions were: 3-0, 1-0 and 2-2.

THE MATCH

Swansea were the more threatening in the opening stages with Patto having to save a bouncing shot from O’Brien in the second minute. Next thing it looked like Cullen’s hand had connected with O’Nien’s head but he escaped without a card. The bloke on my right said, “He’ll get him back.” In the fifth Isidor had the ball in the net but as we began to celebrate we saw the Assistant Ref’s flag waving for offside. It was to be the first of a number of offsides against Isidor. Cullen almost got on the end of a cross from the right but mercifully it whizzed to safety. Swansea won the first corner of the game in the fourteenth and though they made nothing from it, they were back again shortly afterwards with a good opportunity but O’Brien skied his shot when he should have done better. In the twenty-third Isidor managed a shot but it was blocked and following a throw-in on our left there was a clash of heads between Jones and Tymon which resulted in both of them going down for a couple of minutes and then waiting at the side of the pitch to re-enter play. Jones had to wear a new shirt without a name and number on it.

Watson had a low and quite weak shot on target just before the half-hour but Vigouroux in goal saved it easily. Then there was uproar when referee Farai Hallam stopped the game as we were attacking because O’Brien was on his arse back in our half. There was a lot of argy-bargy over by the coaches and the result of it all was that Mepham and O’Brien were yellow-carded. In the thirty-third we put together a rare flowing move that ended with Isidor heading tamely straight at Vigouroux. Several Swansea players were down injured at different times and this was aggravating our fans while they seemed to be playing for time. I was expecting there to be a fair bit of added-time and I was surprised when only three minutes were announced. Apart from our first corner, Nothing of note happened before the half-time whistle went. There were boos for the ref as the officials headed for the tunnel. It had been a half-paced display by us so far and I hoped for much better in the second-half.

As it was International Fans Day there was a penalty shoot-out during the break with Sunderland fans from Canada, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Italy and elsewhere taking part. It was well-applauded by the fans still in their seats.

As usual there were no changes as we kicked off once more. Very little happened during the opening ten minutes of the half and all I could hear was the mumbling of disgruntled fans. Swansea had had the best scoring chances and they went ahead in the fifty-eighth when Cabango shot in from very close range after a Darling header had rebounded from the bar following a free-kick to the left of our box. The gloom was lessened somewhat by the arrival onto the pitch of both Le Fee and Mayenda who replaced Jones and Rigg. After that our play improved and we did show some threat on their goal. Hume was booked for a foul while Fulton soon followed him for the same. We were taking far too long to build many of our attacks with too much of that interminable passing it around at the back between our defenders and Patto. The pretty sparse Swansea contingent sang, “To the sheep-shaggers 1-0! To the sheep-shaggers 1-0” Their side made a couple of switches and looked comfortable enough while handling our attacks.

With twenty minutes to go I thought that O’Nien had given away a penalty but the ref let it go but also didn’t book the Swansea player for simulation, so what was it? Four minutes later Isidor was just off into one of his goal-bound runs when Cabango dragged him over and was duly yellow-carded. Just after that we replaced Watson and Neil with Aleksic and Abdul Samed. The latter has received a lot of criticism but I thought he played well and he was instrumental in us applying more pressure than we’d managed so far. It still wasn’t enough as the Hull defence was well-packed and apart from Roberts, who at times ran too much with the ball instead of passing, we didn’t have the players to get past them. Hjelde replaced Browne in our final change in the eighty-fifth and next thing a good header from Isidor was tipped over by Vigouroux. In the final minute it looked to me that we had a clear penalty when Mayenda was tripped but the ref wasn’t having it. There were four minutes of added-time but despite us getting forward several times we didn’t come near scoring and it ended 0-1. The Swansea fans were in great voice and as their players and staff celebrated in front of them you’d have thought they’d won a trophy.