Planet Swans ArchivesOllie McBurnie’s eleventh goal of the season capped a superb move to prove to be the pivotal point and it could easily have been more had we not squandered some excellent chances in a second half display that I think was as good as anything we have seen at the Liberty this season.
We should not forget that the Blades went into yesterday’s game on the back of four straight league wins that had seen them score 10 in the process and only one side – Leeds – had prevented them scoring in their last 10 league outings.
You could argue that they too squandered some excellent chances but at the same time we should not take anything away from a top quality save by Mulder in the first half that was as good as anything the media heaped praise on De Gea for at Wembley last weekend.
Forced into an early change because of an injury to Rodon that will see him miss six weeks, the Swans were definitely second best through the first half as the visitors played with a confidence that had seen them prior to this weekend lift themselves up into second place in the table. We seemed at time to be chasing shadows and were definitely second best to loose balls as it looked like another night of frustration lay ahead for the Swans.
But a change at half time and a clear bit of managerial guidance and the second half was a different story although the Swans had less possession they had the lions share of the chances – 9 of our 11 attempts at goal coming during the second 45 minutes.
Over the course of the 90 minutes you would look and say there wasn’t much between the teams which can be encouraging for us as we head towards the business end of the season. The win has us six points off the play offs but only 10 points off the third placed Blades and if we can continue the form that we showed in the second half both of those gaps are within our ability to close.
Of course we should not get carried away but we should also not lose sight of the fact that we are playing close to unchanged sides and getting good results with good football which will be needed with some of our tough away trips to come in February in particular.
“For the second half I just asked them to play better. I thought we could have played better in the first half,” said Potter after the game
“In fairness the players did, in the second half I thought we were really good.
“We managed to stretch the game a bit and Oli played a little deeper so we had more combinations there and a threat in behind.”
Goalscorer McBurnie added รขโฌลWe had to weather the storm in the first half and the gaffer had a few choice words for us at the break, whilst making a few tweaks to the formation.
รขโฌลItรขโฌโขs down to us, though, and we came out in the second half and played the football we wanted to, which put them on the back foot. We controlled the ball, moved it well and eventually got our goal from it.”
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