Planet Swans ArchivesKi stooped to head home Kyle Naughton’s perfect cross to cancel out a Jermaine Defoe first half goal where he took advantage of the Swans defence backing off him to score a good goal with what was Sunderland’s only real chance of note.
It was a cagey affair from both sides at the Liberty with the Swans giving a home debut to Kyle Naughton as well as an overall debut to Jack Cork, two of their signings in the last transfer window.
And it was another transfer window addition – Nelson Oliviera – who almost snatched a winner for the Swans towards the end of the game with a smart shot on the turn that was turned around the post by Pantillmon in the visiting goal.
For the visitors they had former Swans players Jordi Gomez and Danny Graham in their starting line up but neither had any real impact on a game that saw six yellow cards being dished out although you would struggle to count many bad fouls in the game save for a late foul on Nathan Dyer in the second half.
It was bitterly disappointing to see the way that we retreated away from Defoe for the Sunderland goal – it is becoming a habit that we let the players take advantage of the space and with the finishing ability of Defoe it is space we could not afford him to have as he finished low and hard past the dive of Fabianski to give the Swans the lead.
Just a minute earlier we had had a goal disallowed when Ki was ruled to be offside from Shelvey’s free kick as the first half saw very few chances although the best of the ones that were there probably did fall to the Swans.
Gomis had the best of them all after a really good flowing passing move from the Swans and he was played in but Pantillmon was quick off his line and blocked the shot. On the flanks, Dyer was not having much impact on the left having been switched there to accommodate Barrow who was completely out of sorts and no threat to Sunderland’s defence at all in the opening half. This led to him being substituted at half time by Montero and we were certainly more dangerous on both flanks as a result.
Fernandez fired high over in the second half after a corner where he was given the chance and for some inexplicable reason Ki elected to put a foot on the ball and pause when played in by Shelvey.
This was all before his header bought the Swans level after another good move and it was Naughton’s cross that was absolutely perfect. The Swans were on the front foot but not able to carve out another chance bar the one mentioned above from Oliviera almost at the death of the game.
The point was definitely the least we deserved from the game and we probably should look back on the 90 minutes as the better team on the day and thankful to see the return of Ki who has been sorely missed in our midfield.
It’s another point won and onto West Brom now on Wednesday night looking to build on four points from the last six, a figure we would have taken happily seven days ago.
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