It Will Prove Costly

On the face of it, six points out of nine is a good return. And a return that I most definitely would have taken had you offered it to be before the Tranmere game kicked off. And had you said where will you get those six points I would have said the two games that we won. I never expected a win at Huddersfield – good teams are very hard to win against away from home.

However, as I watched (listened) to the game unfold yesterday afternoon I started to shake my head at what was happening. Clearly we seemed to have an incompetent ref but please don’t spout the bollocks about ‘must have been biased as he was from the next county” It really has nothing to do with it. If we had a ref at White Rock from South Glamorgan do you think he would be on our side or the opposition side. Huddersfield fans are openly admitting he was crap and Swans fans have commented on him being a homer. Not unusual that one, I have seen several at the Vetch. Indeed, it is not unusual to see a host of cards for the visitors and nowhere near as many for the home side. Location has nothing to do with that, it’s incompetence or maybe intimidation.

However, having watched the highlights today it does appear that we have only ourselves to blame in some corners. Kris O’Leary was unlucky IMO with his red card but I guess technically it was an elbow. The only frustration I have is that players lead with the elbow on every single aerial challenge all but. How many of those lead to red cards? That’s inconsistency. However, looking at it (if it’s possible) from a neutral point of view the challenge looked worse as he appeared to jump in from a distance away but I suspect if he made the same challenge 10 times in front of different referees he would be sent off 2-3 times maximum.

Izzy was just plain stupid. We have already lost Monk to an injury, are down to 10 men with last season’s player of the year facing a suspension and Izzy is sent off for getting involved in an incident from which he had no direct involvement. It was a late challenge on OTJ yes but that does not excuse the reaction of Izzy. Charging at the referee was dull, swearing at him pretty much duller and his reaction after the red card was clearly the reaction of someone who had lost the plot. Now considering Monk and Robbo have already been hit with longer bans for failing to leave the field immediately the track record doesn’t look good does it. Let’s hope the FAW are in one of their better moods? Sorry Izzy but you let us down. The game was gone, we’d been beaten. Now you ensure that you will miss a few games at least – see you on Bank Holiday Monday? It’s bad enough missing a vital cog like Robbo for a red card last season but compounding that is not clever.

We do have an indiscipline problem and it needs addressing. We have a smallish squad who we hope can compete a division higher than last season. Losing people to suspensions is not on. Our disciplinary record shows we have amassed 11 yellow cards and 2 red cards in just three games. We have more than double the fair play league points of any other side in a table where the lower the number the better. And that needs to be addressed.

FAIR PLAY TABLE – LEAGUE ONE

Who the cards have been gained by

With suspensions coming on top of injuries it could easily neutralise the good start we have made and that cannot be excused. Izzy let us and his team mates down yesterday, lets hope he is the last Swans player to do that this season.

And in the meantime it gives Kenny Jackett a bit of a dilemma into how to get cover for the missing players.

Click Here For The Huddersfield Report