Planet Swans ArchivesHollins made 2 bold moves prior to the game to stop a third consecutive defeat dropping both new boys Savarese and Romo, in favor of O’Leary and Roberts, promoting Cusack to a striking role with Steve Watkin. However the gamble never really looked like coming off.
Conditions have to be described as awful, a 65 mph wind on a very soggy surface meant that this game could never be classed as a classic.
The first chance fell to the Swans on 5 mins, after some good play by Thomas, Roberts was put through down the wing only for his low skidding cross to be claimed by the keeper.
From then on the game got really scrapy with few chances or real shots on goal. The one noteable exception was a 30 yd strike from Bridge-Wilkinson which Roger had to stretch to force for a corner.
Then Port Vale’s winner came, Price was put through by Cusack but in his usual clumsy way lost the ball inside their box, this left the make-shift right back out of position, so he couldn’t be bothered to run back, this wasn’t the first time either! In the meantime Port Vale’s Brammer ran almost the length of the pitch to cross to the un-marked Cummins to put his shot away from 5 yds.
This brought a small revival amongst the team as they were desperate not to lose again. A deep Howard cross swirling in the wind confused the keeper, leaving Roberts th chance to head across the goal only for both Cusack and Watkin to mis-run the play and the ball safely dispursed of.
Then Cusack had a fairly conspicuous penalty appeal turned down, after literally being yanked down to the ground 3 yds from goal, by Vale defender Mike Walsh.
Port Vale then decided to sit on their lead and play on the break, with Swansea’s lack of dynamics the writing was on the wall already!
Half-Time
Hollins obviously saw how much of a liability Price was at full back, swapping Roberts over to the left wing, Price onto the right, leaving Jenkins in the righ-back role. There was very little to comment on in the second half, Hollins tried desparately to change the result with 3-4 weird formations, both Savarese and Romo got on but did even less than the people they replaced (O’Leary and Smith). Smith picked up a possible ligament strain so could be missing for a couple of weeks!
As Hollins got more and more desparate as we hadn’t even manged a strike on target all game, the confidence hit rock bottom, this showed most when near the end when a Swans offside trap failed, Bound came over to cover but no other Swans player bothered to come back, so over run 4-1 a goal looked certain, however Brammer’s shot hit the post, and brought the biggest cheer from the NB.
The game ended with shouts for Hollins to sort it out, and loud booing, at this rate will Hollins still be in charge by the middle of November? I hope so, as you may well know by now I’m no real fan of Hollins but the turmoil caused by his dismissal would replicate the last time we were relegated from this division with the Franky Burrows/ then too many managers in 3 weeks scenario! Turmoil is the last thing the club needs.
There’s still a long way to go this season, we’re not going to get promoted this season but we sure won’t get relegated. Keep the faith!
