Phil SumblerKorey Smith says that the performance against Cardiff City was the best that the Swans have out in for a while but concedes – as he has to – that the only stat that mattered at the end of the day was that they scored one goal and we scored none.
Much of the post match noise that has come out of the Swansea camp since the final whistle blew yesterday was that we dominated the game and much has been made of our 23 shots at goal, 9 of which missed the target and 13 of which were blocked. It is easy to see why people think that is domination but when you reflect back on the game itself you could easily suggest that we were lucky not to lose by a couple more.
The early goal was the worst thing that could have happened and it was really evident that Mick McCarthy’s half time team talk consisted on telling his side to defend deep and try and hit the Swans on the break. 81% possession was the result of the Swans second half possession and 17 of those 23 shots but ultimately it was the last minute of stoppage time before Dylan Phillips was made to perform a save of note.
This was a Steve Cooper side being undone by an almost Steve Cooper game plan of score early and defend as if your life depends on it. It is what Cardiff did yesterday as bodies were thrown in front of the ball at every opportunity and Phillips was protected as much as possible so we will never know whether he would have kept out the efforts. On another day we could have scored two or three as those blocks don’t happen and we find shooting boots and hit the target more. But it didn’t happen and we lost. The only reality that matters.
“At the end of the day, the ball wasn’t going in the net and we conceded a goal and lost 1-0 – that’s the only stat that counts,” said Smith.
“We’ve got to try and continue to play how we did in this game; it was probably our best performance for a while, but the most important thing is getting results.
“We’re just gutted for the fans. We wanted to be the first team to win the double, but sometimes it’s not meant to be.”
The result also meant that Steve Cooper’s side have been beaten back to back in the league for the first time in 15 months and now we have the full two week length of the international break to reflect on what has been a disappointing ten games since we beat Norwich at the Liberty to close in on them at the top of the table. Five wins and four defeats in those ten games have taken our promotion chances out of our own hands and now we have to start relying on others. We can hope that Watford lose all their momentum in the international break and we can also hope that Brentford don’t find too much of their own.
But we absolutely have to pick ourselves up and go again in two weeks time and not wallow in a hugely disappointing week. We still have a chance and whilst that chance has hugely diminished in the last week we also need to remember that the play offs seemed out of reach last season and yet we all know what happened there.
