Bournemouth 2 Swansea 2

Willy 7 – Starting to regain form recently R Duffy 5 – Shouldn’t have been picked IMO – cost us 1st goal when he lost his man. Lawrence 6 – Struggled today. Fletcher was too strong for him. As ever, at his best in attack where his awareness is useful. Iriekpen 7 – Solid and quick enough to rescue us on several occasions. Painter 6 – Fell over at inopportune moment prior to the cross for their 2nd. Improved when Williams came on as you’d expect. Craney 6 – Not particularly creative, badly needs a goal. Others called his performance lazy which is just plain stupid. O’Leary 5 – Failed to get near Anderton who completely ran the show til he was mercifully (for us) subbed on 63. Britton 6 – Battled and eventually created the 2nd but not at his best. Butler 5 – Just not good enough. Flawed selection.Delivery continues to be v poor. Trundle 6 – Improved as it went on. Marked like a limpet throughout but one sniff and he scored. D Duffy 8 – My MOM for us. He is breathing life into us with his pace and effort. Williams 7 – Why oh why did he not start after excelling Monday. Murdered Purches(their RB) for the 40mins he played. Tate – 7 – Largely composed and steadily improved us. As good a strike with his left peg as you’ve seen all season. Abbott 6 – Caused problems though still wants too long on the ball but his turn and shot ultimately led to the equalizer. In summary, this performance epitomised our season. Very up and down, v poor set pieces both defending and attacking and a desperate late effort to grab a point from a game we would have lost 2mths ago. Darren Anderton ran the game for an hour before being mysteriously subbed to our utter relief. KOL and Craney didn’t get near him. Bournemouth took their chances clinically and despite our domination on territory and possession, for the 1st 75mins we hardly created a chance. But our substitutions and tactical changes worked and theirs didn’t. Williams gave us pace and width, Tate, composure and improved distribution and Abbott , nuisance value. Our best player was Darryl Duffy who worked his ballacks off and one run down the left in the 2nd half where he beat 2 or 3 players before his shot was deflected for our umpteenth corner epitomised his performance. Best I can say about him is he improved upon his Monday performance which was itself very good. He is a harder-working version of Leon Knight. Martinez got his subs right and was happy to go for broke, even at 2-2 he had 4 up front with Lawrence up there too. Great to see. His prompting and enthusiasm on the touchline are a joy to see after the KJ yrs. But he too is not immune to dodgy selections- Butler and R Duffy today to name 2. Overall it was a point gained from a match in which we never looked like winning. Our heart is there at the moment which hasn’t been the case for a long time IMO. I’m increasingly cofident RM will take us up but not this season. With the players he currently has available we are doing about aswell as could be expected.

Credit too to our supporters today- excellent! Once we got one it was always likely that we’d equalise as the noise levels went through the roof and you could see their players were bricking it at 2-1. To the clowns who left early – Why? 8hr round trip to miss our best comeback in many a moon.

Player ratings – Big willy – 7 Looked assured and some top saves Duffy – 4 Looked low on confidence , knackered and didn’t want the ball Lawrence – 6 Gave the ball away far to often and struggled against Fletcher Izzy – 7 His pace saved us on numerous occasions Painter -6 Poor game by his standards Britton -6 created nothing and struggled without support of a rightback Craney – 7 Great work rate but nothing else KOL – 4 Struggled badly against a decent midfield Butler -5 marked out of the game Trundle -7 good work rate , kept pressing Duffy -7 as above , decent goal disallowed Tate – 8 made a difference in midfield with a great goal Williams – 8 endless crosses and supported the front two well Abbott – 4 Offers us nothing ! All in all we were outplayed for 80 mins , our shape was lost on numerous occasions and we reverted to the long ball. Our 3 -2 -5 formation got us a foothold but it is very evident our team has far too many squad players i hope Bob is brave and get some quality in during the summer.

I cdont know why Butler was picked ahead of Williams. He was awful at Millwall and Bristol City.

Player ratings – Wally – 6 Doesn’t look certain and sure, but started and finished OK, altho continued his form of throwing to the opposition during the middle period Duffy – 5 Looked out of sorts, rarely pushed forward and was outjumped by his marker in a 1 on 1 for the 2nd B goal at a corner Lawrence – 6 mixed game – lost too many headers Izzy – 7 Covered well at pace Painter -7 looked a class defender, although got pressurised and a bit flistered later as the team lost its shape. Britton – 7 Excellent 1st 45, but he and duffy outnumbered and not helped by a lack of support from inside Craney – 6 Worked hard and did well but faded with the substitutions and loss of shape KOL – 4 Off the pace Butler – 4 Saw a lot of the ball in the first 45 but delivered nothing Trundle – 6 has to come to the ball not wait for it. And stop juggling Duffy – 7 lively player who looks dangerous Tate – 7 more effective than KOL in the centre role Williams – 7 good doing forward and a danger but strangely reluctant to get back to his full back when necessary. Abbott – 6 looked mobile and threatening, and had a few chances Too often Duffy, LT10 and Abbott as a front 3 looked for the same space and became too narrow congesting the front line, altho it did contribute to the melee when LT10 poked home the equaliser Dominated the first 45 both territory and possession but wasted opportunities. Against the run of play fell to a sucker punch again at a defensive set piece. Looked frail and lost shape, presence, positioning and all 50:50’s for the 3rd quarter when Bmuff ripped us open for their 2nd, and had enough chances to kill the game. Normal service resumed for the last quarter as we got desperate lumping balls up to what were a flat front line of 5 or 6 at times, but it paid off with the equaliser. If we’d scored first when we had the chances this could have been such a different game and they looked ready to crumble, but it was typical of our season that we let the game get away from us.