Things just go from good to better for the Swans as they made it 15 games unbeaten and lifted themselves up to 7th place in the table with a game in hand on the two sides immediately above them.
The possibility of Premiership football remains very large at this moment in time and the Swans are currently heading full steam towards that goal with a brand of football not seen for many years.
There were rumours that we could not cope without Ferrie Bodde – injured co-incidentally 15 games ago and the doom and gloom that met the injury to Darren Pratley is unfounded as the Swans continue on top form and destroying sides for ease.
And in Jason Scotland they have an early contender for bargain of the century. His 44th and 45th goals for the Swans have come in just 75 starts and 39 league goals in 68 starts is a record not matched by too many strikers up and down the country. And couple that with the fact that only Kevin Doyle and Sylvan Ebanks Blake stand ahead of him in the Championship scoring charts and you start to wonder how he ever came in for criticism at the start of the season. All seems so silly now.
And then there was Albert Serran. In for his Championship debut in place of one of the best right backs outside the Premiership and you would swear he had been there all season. Including the fact it took him less than 180 seconds to set up Scotland for the opener. These truly are special times and everyone should enjoy them while they last.
Serran for Rangel and Dyer for Orlandi were the predictable changes of the day leaving the Swans to line up as follows
Dorus
Serran Monk Williams Tate
Dyer Britton Gomez Allen Gower
Scotland
Last week there was criticism of the Swans giving the ball away too easily and when Tate conceded possession before there were 20 seconds on the clock there was a thought train that could have said that it could have gone the same way. But the Swans like to start quickly these days – especially at home – and so it proved as they took the lead within three minutes.
Serran burst through on the right hand side and ignoring the first of endless Ipswich fouls on the day he reached the byline and crossed along the floor for Scotland to meet it with perfection and send the ball into the top of the net. 1-0 Swansea and even at that stage you thought it was going to be another one of the good days.
What is strange is back in the dark days when we were fighting to stay in the league there was so little good to remember that these match reports were easy to write. Now so much is good that short of taking a piece of paper and noting it all down it is hard to single out certain moves as better than others. Britton, Gomez and Allen were controlling the midfield although – credit to Ipswich – they weren’t lining up ten behind the ball as many teams do when they come down here and were trying to make a game of it.
Having said that there were few chances of note for them in the first half whilst the Swans – maybe not with possession levels as high as they have been in recent weeks – always looked dangerous enough to carve out a second. Serran grew with almost every touch of the ball whilst Dyer and Gower rotated positions on a frequent basis – at this point I have to ask am I the only one that thinks Dyer looks better on the left than the right?
And at the back Monk and Williams did what Monk and Williams do in keeping the Ipswich strikers at bay as much as possible whilst at the other end of the pitch Scotland put in another match winning display.
Scotland’s second goal was – quite simply brilliant although I suspect it will be vastly underplayed in terms of praise in the media. Getting the ball in the area and seemingly losing the chance before recovering, composing and shooting past a former England goalkeeper who could only watch and no doubt marvel (!) 2-0, game over and the Swans well on the march. Scotland celebrated – as seems to be the norm – with the South Stand and his ignoring of parts of the East Stand no doubt goes back to the undue criticism of a few months previous(!) But frankly what is plainly obvious at the moment is that we could not manage without him and lets not think of a time when we should have to.
Two became three and it was the icing on the cake as Gomez curled in a thirty yard free kick which left Wright flapping at thin air and the job was done. At the start of the season every pessimist told you the aim was to stay in the division but at this moment in time you wonder if we are actually capable of doing that………
Nothing more can be added other than the words of a forum regular – Just smile!
