Phil SumblerIt is really hard to watch football on TV when the game is being played without any crowd noise at all. And right now it is really difficult to watch the Swans doing that because for 90 minutes the game passes by in large quantities of nothing happening.
That was certainly the case tonight as the Swans continued a reasonably consistent record under Steve Cooper of following up a league defeat with a draw. Thirteen times Steve Cooper has seen his side beaten in the league and tonight was the eleventh time we have followed one of those defeats with a draw.
Handing a Swans league debut to Ryan Bennett at the expense of Kyle Naughton it was the only change that Cooper made from the weekend defeat against Huddersfield. Everything else stayed the same – including sadly large aspects of the performance – although the late (but at the same time unusually early) introduction of Liam Cullen did threaten briefly to make the Swans a little more cutting edge.
The simplistic fact is – as we have said all season – is that this side is not designed to score many goals. Six games in, we have found the back of the net seven times and not really created a hatful of chances to say that goals are to follow. Defensively we remain strong for large parts of the game but Coventry can rightfully look back on some gilt edged chances towards the end where the Swans were let off conceding a home winner.
It was only one moment of magic from Andre Ayew that salvaged a point here when he worked his way into the area in a strong run after more good work from Bidwell on the left hand side of the pitch. The goal cancelled out the Coventry opener that was helped by Grimes giving the ball away cheaply in midfield and the Swans defence sitting back from the Coventry attack to allow for a strong finish but from a player afforded way too much room.
With Ayew pulling us level before half time you wondered if we could push on second half and despite the (very tedious) commentary from Swans TV making noises to the contrary had we won that game it would have been a travesty with Coventry wasting the best chances.
The game for me was summed up with our last attack which was a free kick in a dangerous position. Matt Grimes floated it deep and it was cleared with some ease from Coventry. Grimes continues to take the lions share of our set pieces and time and time again he continues to deliver disappointment from them. This isn’t designed to be critical of the Swans captain but it just means we are more and more predictable and sides are seeing that and coping with it with some ease.
We desperately need a striker and we miss Morgan Gibbs-White badly – without him there simply isn’t enough creativity in the side.
A point gained is a point gained but this was tedious to watch – maybe having no crowd there was a blessing, we don’t have the journey home with the disappointment!
