Swansea 1 Carlisle 2

Swansea 1 Carlisle 2

After the discussions around yesterday regarding the almost inevitable (it seems) appointment of Kenny Jackett it was with some hope that Swans fans still talked (albeit quietly) about play offs today but this just simply proved that we are just not good enough to reach that goal even if we were in with a shout mathematically.

There was a home debut for left back Lee Fieldwick who took his place in the side, in a 4-4-2 line up as follows

Freestone

S Jones O’Leary Tate Fieldwick

Maylett Britton Martinez Roberts

Trundle Connor

Subs: Murphy, Thomas, Nugent, Coates, Rees

With the fine weather of the past week being replaced by rain, it never promised to be an easy afternoon but thankfully the roof situation on the North Bank never got tested with numerous gaps in the terraces in a crowd of just over 5,200. Swansea started OK at best and took the lead on quarter of an hour when Paul Connor rose to head home a pin point Roberto Martinez free kick. That was as good as it got and as the game wore on gradually Carlisle showed that they were more and more in control.

Andy Preece had the beating of Alan Tate all afternoon and backed up by Peter Duffield they created enough chances to have been ahead at the interval. However, they had to settle for just being level when Tate was adjudged to have fouled in the area and Craig Farrell just beat the dive of Roger Freestone to score the equaliser.

Several chances fell by the wayside for Carlisle as they looked to try and continue their recovery at the bottom of the league with Swansea’s best chance falling to Roberts after Trundle’s shot was saved but he was unable to find the target.

Maylett and Roberts swapped wings halfway through the first half to try and make a difference to the pattern of the game and, in fairness, Maylett was having a good game, taking his man on but all too often his balls into the centre were met with a notable absence of the Swansea forward line.

No changes at half time in personnel and no changes in the pattern of the game. It was an hour in when Carlisle scored the decisive goal, Preece’s ball finding Duffield who hit a shot that deceived Freestone and landed in the back of the net to cheer the, what has to be said, pretty decent travelling support from Cumbria.

Alan Curtis responded by throwing on James Thomas for Roberts and moving to a three up front scenario but it had little effect as Carlisle remained the better, and certainly more hungry team. Balls into the centre from Swansea were not challenged for and the visitors were first to the loose ball and quicker in possession. With 15 minutes left it was Nugent for Connor and to be fair Nuge won some flicks but again they went nowhere with no anticipation from his forward partners as to what we were evidently trying to achieve.

Two later bookings including Britton for diving followed and bar the mini excitement of Roger arriving for a corner there was never likely to be an equaliser in what was a poor performance all round. As the final whistle blew so some of the jeers around the Vetch could be heard even for those of us that were already heading out of the ground at that time. The driving rain as we left the Vetch only sums up the way that this afternoon went.

Swans man of the match for me would be edged by Maylett even if he did tire towards the end of the game but let’s not take that literally as meaning he was outstanding more that he was probably the pick of a bad bunch today.

If Jackett is to be the new man then he must surely be made aware that he has a big job ahead of him to steer the talent that is there to a showing of a football team and one thing can be certain, the playing squad is likely to be in for a summer of hard work to get the necessary preparation for the middle of August.

Carlisle remain 5 points away from safety at the bottom but on this showing their humming of the great escape could prove apt but they can be rest assured that they will face sides more hungry in their remaining six games. They are not a great side but they battle hard for each other and that is a big lesson that any team could learn from.

Not a good afternoon’s work.

Why not check out the latest Vetch Verdict on the BBC site?