Phil Sumbler
Swansea City’s distant hopes of reaching the play-offs officially ended this afternoon when they had to thank Luke Cundle for earning them a point at Hull to keep an unbeaten run going but now that is all we have left to maintain in the last game of the season next week.
Last week’s destruction of Norwich was one of the performances of the season and this afternoon the Swans were looking for more of the same particularly as the fading play off hopes were still in place as the game approached kick off.
That kick off was confirmed to be with the Swans naming an unchanged side from the one that impressed a week or so ago with the same eighteen man squad also on duty.
There are games that feel like end of season encounters often at this stage of the season and it is fair to say that this was one of them for large periods of a first half that set a tone when Hull scored inside three minutes through a Ben Cabango own goal and was only really lit up by a superb Luke Cundle equaliser that ended a pretty impressive Swansea move.
The Swans were getting into a position in the latter stages of the first half of dominating both possession and play but for large periods this game was a reasonably dour affair with goal action very limited from both sides with Cundle’s goal the only effort on target from the Swans in the opening 45 minutes.
The second half started with the home side taking their turn to dominate possession but again with very little impact or pressure on the Swans goal although a shot with just under twenty minutes left did rattle the Swans crossbar as they tried to secure three points.
The phrase “on the beach” may not be often used in Humberside despite its location near to the coastย but the phrase could clearly be heard today as the game was drifting towards its conclusion with more and more of the atmosphere and play dictating a meaningless end of season encounter rather than one where one of the sides had a faint hope of play off places.
Swansea introduced Ollie Cooper into the play in a bid to try and get the goal that they desired to at least deliver on their part of today’s bargain but all too often the team saw our moves break down through errors of our own and what looked like a desire to not pass the ball into the box when the opportunity presented itself.
Morgan Whittaker and Cameron Congreve were introduced into the play late on as Martin rolled the dice for the last time on the road this season and it did bring a short flurry of goalmouth action from the Swans who had registered the only shot on target in the game in the second half as we moved towards stoppage time.
Ultimately it was always likely to be a distant dream that the Swans could make the play offs and we should never lose sight of the fact that whilst the end of season run has been positive we were largely less than average between around October and the end of February.ย ย It was not the inability to get a winner at Hull that ended our play off hopes but that run of form that saw us win extremely infrequently.
The positives are of course this run gives some level of confidence for next season although we know that there are some uncertainties in the summer ahead and particularly around which of today’s players may still be here come August.
That though is a discussion point for the days, weeks and months ahead but for now we know that the play offs are not going to happen for us this time around but we very much have a top 10 league finish still in our own hands.
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