The Swansea City midfielder spurned some good chances in the first game at the Liberty just over a week ago and he is ready to accept that those misses could cost the Swans dear.<\/p>\n
The post and Mark Schwarzer kept Gower off the scoresheet as he continues that elusive search for his first Swansea goal – six months into the season.<\/p>\n
And the Swans take on Fulham at Craven Cottage on Tuesday night knowing that the reward for victory will be a quarter final appearance against Manchester United – the side currently 8 points clear at the top of the Premiership.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Wales on Sunday, Gower said \u201cI know I played well and I was pleased with that. And the staff have been great, telling me I\u2019m not in the side to score goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was fine when it wasn\u2019t costing the side any points because we\u2019ve had Jason on fire and we\u2019d been keeping clean sheets.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when you miss a chance like I did against Fulham then it\u2019s not about you, it\u2019s about costing the team; and that sticks in your throat.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be fair, I think I\u2019ve been unlucky so far this year but that was my first one I should have put away. Perhaps if I\u2019d had a couple already and it wasn\u2019t going through my mind I would have.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo to see Jason score later on was just a massive relief for me because we had dominated that game.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then when Manchester United comes out of the hat you can\u2019t help thinking that if I had put that in then we would be in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cOr even if I\u2019d just had a bit of luck off the post we could be looking forward to one of the biggest games of our careers. And that\u2019s what\u2019s getting to me. People are saying \u2018unlucky\u2019 but when it starts costing the team it\u2019s not a joke.”<\/p>\n
Amusingly Gower also says that he was advised not to take the dreaded number 11 shirt that seems to have become somewhat of a curse in recent seasons \u201cAt the start of the season a few of the boys told me not to take it because lads who had it before had not had the greatest of times here, especially in front of goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I didn\u2019t want to take it at first after all that. Number 29 was available and I was 29 when I signed so I was happy to wear that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the manager urged me to take the No.11 and here we are. But I\u2019m just looking for something else to blame now because I really don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can beat Fulham without a shadow of a doubt; and that\u2019s not just us saying that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you hear someone like Sir Alex Ferguson saying what he did you know you must have a chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you question yourself whether you\u2019re playing as well as you think, but then you hear what people like Sir Alex say and the TV coverage, and realise we are that good at the moment and we have nothing to fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven talking to Simon Davies after the first game, he was saying how frustrated he was because he hardly had a kick and had to chase shadows for 90 minutes. If you can do that to a Premier League team then it says something and we can\u2019t help but take confidence from that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first we were hoping for another lower-key game because you see what Cardiff and Barnsley did last year and you start dreaming.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then United come out and you realise you\u2019re one win away from such a fantastic opportunity and a game against the best team in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s not just about United, it\u2019s the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and that\u2019s a huge thing for many of us.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may not be a major, major achievement for some but although I started my career at Spurs I never played at the highest level; and for someone who\u2019s only played two full years at this level it\u2019s big.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 30 and I know there might not be many more opportunities like this and it\u2019s definitely something you can look back on.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we know if we go to Fulham and perform as we know we can, and be ourselves, that chance is there for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Swansea City midfielder spurned some good chances in the first game at the Liberty just over a week ago and he is ready to accept that those misses could cost the Swans dear. The post and Mark Schwarzer kept Gower off the scoresheet as he continues that elusive search for his first Swansea goal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}