Planet Swans ArchivesHollins made only one change from the side that drew 1-1 @ Oldham last Saturday, with the return of Howard who replaced De-Vulgt at left back.
With a heavy pitch we knew this wouldn’t be any easy game, the Swans used a 4-4-2 formation of :
Freestone
Price – Bound – Smith – Howard
Jenkins – Romo – Cusack – Roberts
Savarese – Watkin
With Jenkins in the middle of the park this left price to play a wing back role getting forward when possible.
Oxford had a similar line-up but a more standard 4-4-2 formation. Oxford made the better start in the first ten minutes, with much of the possession, but no real chances looked to have come to prove a point.
But on 12 mins Steve Watkin opened the scoring for the Swans with their first attack of the game. From a central position Romo set Price through on the right wing, although his first cross was blocked it gave him the chance to get behind the big defense of Oxford. His second cross whipped in across the box for Watkin to tap in his third goal of the season from 3 yds.
But the lead was short lived, We’d warned you before of the threat of Joey Beauchamp in the Match Preview, and boy did he prove his worth.
The ex-Swans loan signing was given yards of space after Romo slipped in his pursuit of the ball, Beauchamp then proceed to curl a beauty in to the top right corner of the net from 35yds. The North Bank applauded appreciatively as the goal was stunning.
A couple of minutes later Lee Jenkins was booked for a nothing tackle, this really frustrated the NB as every dirty challenge from Oxford seemingly went unpunished.
The Swans nearly took the lead however on the half hour, when a free kick from Romo was headed back by Smith for Cusack to control well and shoot from 20 yds out, only for the shot to be directed straight at the keeper.
Oxford still had the majority of possession and seemed to win every 50-50 ball, every 60-40 ball and even the 90-10 balls. There was such a lack of any conviction or want to win that it was no surprise when on 34 mins a half cleared corner was shot through the mass of bodies into the net by Andrews.
Half Time
If the performance of the team and the ref were awful in the first half they went diabolical in the second. They couldn’t string 2 passes together, this was more due to the Wimbledoneque stalling and disrupting tactics Director of Football Joe Kinear has started at the Oxford club.
In the end Hollins decided a double substitution was necessary to balance the score. Thomas was brought on for Romo who was having a nightmare and Appleby came on for Stu Roberts who just couldn’t beat his man.
The crowd was getting quite wound up know as the ref was giving decisions the wrong way all the time, overruling the linesmen a few times as well even though he was 20 yds away from the incidents.
The final straw was when Thomas was obviously being pulled away from the ball by Beauchamp in the penalty area, the linesman flagged but again the ref over ruled!
Then just to rub it in Bound was sent off for an off the ball incident which no-one I’ve spoken to saw, all we did see was the Oxford player charging into Bound pushing and screaming in his face. The Oxford player tried to make out he had been elbowed in the face, if that was the case then fair enough Bound was right to go, also the Oxford player should have gone for retaliation, also Stu Roberts and Joey Beauchamp should have been sent off for similar elbowing offenses in the first half.
Smith and Price in trying to defend Bound were given yellow cards for dissent. After that we just seemed to crawl up and die, these games happen once a season, it’s just typical it’s made us the laughing stock of Division 2
