Phil SumblerLast night was summed up by Birmingham City boss Lee Bowyer when he accused the Swans of predictability in his live interview on Sky Sports.
Speaking after watching his side complete a 1-0 victory, Bowyer said that the Swans simply play the same structure and formation every week and it was clear from those comments that he had worked that out and that made his job on the night very easy. In short, we had nothing that even resembled anything close to a Plan B and that is now coming back to haunt us as we slipped to a 5th loss in 10 games and a third game without scoring.
Hogan’s penalty may have been almost the last action of the game but it ended another 90 minutes where the Swans just were not at the races and certainly not a side that anybody could claim was ‘pushing’ for promotion to the Premier League no matter what the league table tells you.
Speaking in some more detail via Birmingham’s website after the Sky Sports cameras had stopped rolling Bowyer added “It’s a massive result. To take anything from Swansea would have been good, but to take all three [points] brings others closer to us. It gives us little a gap with Rotherham, yes they’ve got four games in hand, but points are hard to get for everyone. You have to work hard for the points and tonight we have done that.
“If we can keep this home form from now until the end of the season then we have a chance of staying in the division.
“I liked everything from our performance. The work rate was very good and our press. Swansea are a top side and they are sitting in third position for a reason. They’ve got some very good players, if we didn’t get our press right today then we would have lost the game – I can’t tell you how important that was.
“We work hard on the training pitch and we try and win every game. I am guiding the players and that is my job: to try and make things difficult for the opposition and create chances for us.
“The players are taking it on board and they are following the instructions that are given to them.”
Bowyer’s last three comments above sum it all up and highlight just about everything that is missing for us at the moment.
Revelation, a manager has publicly stated what some of us have been saying since September 2019.
Ps, Bowyer didn’t accuse he simply observed.