Phil SumblerAll the good work of Saturday was undone by the Swans this evening with a dreadful performance at Pride Park that saw Derby record a first home win of the season and the Swans fail to register a shot on target in a totally unacceptable performance.
There is a suggestion in football that you don’t change a winning side and Steve Cooper clearly subscribes to that mantra as he named an unchanged side from the one that breezed past Cardiff on the weekend.
However, where on Saturday he had the perfect start this evening he had anything but as his side found themselves on the receiving end of a goal inside four minutes.ย Having conceded a couple of cheap free kicks it was the second one that caused hesitation in the Swans defence and it was Kazim-Richards that got to the ball before Connor Roberts to stab home the start that Wayne Rooney would have dreamed of.
For a defence such as ours which has been so tight all season it was uncharacteristically poor defending that saw us fall behind and something that Cooper will not want to see repeated too often.ย And it set the tone for a pretty poor first fifteen minutes from the Swans who were guilty of conceding possession all too often and giving Derby the upper hand in the game completely.
And that upper hand could have resulted in a second goal inside twenty minutes when Knight’s powerful shot from outside the box was just tipped onto the post by Woodman with the Swans barely having reached the Derby penalty area let alone had a notable effort at goal.
The pattern of play was not changing as the first half developed and it was no real surprise when Derby doubled their advantage ten minutes before the interval.ย A previously tight Swansea defence was leaving holes all over it as Waghorn and Jozwiak combined well and a powerful shot from the latter gave Woodman no chance and Derby had a 2-0 lead.
As the cameras panned to Steve Cooper his face said it all with this easily being Swansea’s worst 45 minutes of the season and seemingly already out of the game with more than fifty minutes to play.ย The Swans were still conceding cheap and needless free kicks and unable to string any passage of play together and changes at half time were surely inevitable with many in the Swans side invisible during the first half.
Thankfully we reached the interval just the two goals down which was only courtesy of Derby striking the woodwork for the second time in the half when a strong header from a corner came back off the crossbar with Swansea’s defence again looking completely out of the game.
Cooper’s reaction was a half time triple sub with Palmer, Dhanda and Manning introduced at the expense of Fulton, Bidwell and Naughton as he looked to shake things up with a formation change accompanying the three new arrivals.
It did seem to make some difference to the style of play in the early stages of the second half but still Swansea were guilty of giving away possession far too easily and finding that they could do little against a well organised Derby defence.ย ย By this stage the home side seemed content to be giving up the possession to the Swans knowing that they could stand firm at the back – Swansea being undone by some familiar Swansea tactics against us at this point in time.
On the hour mark Cooper shook things up more by replacing Lowe with Garrick in the hope that the pace of the winger could make a difference and in a clear attempt to try and get his side back into the game.ย It wasn’t working though and as the game passed the seventy minute mark then the stats summed up the night it had been.ย ย Derby with 11 shots at goal, Swansea with just 2 and if you were honest at this point not really sure you could remember the two shots causing any panic in the Derby defence.
Swansea finally forced some work from David Marshall with a couple of Dhanda balls into the area causing the keeper to come and punch them clear but still we had too many players just not turning up on the night and Derby – with eleven men behind the ball – were standing firm in not letting us get into any positions of note to cause them problems.
Liam Cullen was the 5th and final change of the evening for the Swans but with ten minutes to go it felt nothing more than a token gesture from the Swans bench rather than something we believed would make the difference to the game itself although the plus point was it ended the “contribution” of Smith for the evening.
There are days where you know it is just a bad day at the office and this certainly was one of those for the Swans.ย ย We were never in the game in the early stages and for all the credit and plaudits we took from Saturday we have to stand and face the criticism that is due this evening.ย ย To a team we played poorly and there was not a performance that you would say stood out as someone playing well.
In the past five days we have seen two very different Swansea City performances.ย The good of Saturday was balanced by the very bad of tonight.ย ย That is not to say that we are not promotion candidates based on the performance but Cooper needs to be laying into his side tonight and ensuring that what we see on Saturday is in line with what we expect and not the shower we saw this evening.ย We also have to ensure that if we want to be serious promotion candidates that we don’t put in performances like this very often especially as it is difficult to see Norwich, Bournemouth or Watford being this bad?
There is little doubt that this was one of those nights that Derby could probably have gone home at half time and we still wouldn’t have threatened so let’s see how we bounce back from this on Saturday.ย We haven’t become a bad team overnight have we?
Would the real Swansea City please stand up.
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