Swans v Rotherham | Vital Football

Swans v Rotherham

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
After the shameful Rangel antics against our players and fans at QPR and our away match shambles, where we capitulated to a team below us who had forgotten how to win, next up is Rotherham at home this Friday.
Another struggling side who beat us on their own patch after being completely dominated.

Our form is hard to explain, champions at home and chumps away.
Take our last 6 matches -
Home W3 D0 L0 F9 A2
Away W0 D0 L3 F1 A9
and our last 8 away -
W0 D0 L8 F3 A17
Zero points since we drew at Preston in January, nine away matches ago.
And still it goes on as Potter struggles with his tactics and players to try and get away points on the board.
Thankfully our home form is still good or we’d be relegated by now.
Rotherham match is a chance to get some confidence back as we finished at QPR with it in tatters.
 
Just looking back at the reverse fixture last November, where ref Tony Harrington awarded two late penalties after McBurnie had given us the lead on 25’ after James had ran rings round their full back.

Team: Nordfelt, Naughton, VdH, Rodon, Grimes, Fulton, Fer, Roberts, Celina, James, McBurnie.

Possession 22% - 78%

Shots 7 - 12

On target 4 - 4

On 79’ Nordfelt brought down Procter (who was blatantly offside) in the box, and on 87’ Fer got in the way of a stinging shot and was harshly adjudged to have handled the ball. Manning put both penalties away.

Rotherham manager Paul Warne -

"I'm not going to tell a lie. I wasn't happy with our performance. In fairness, I think the lads gave everything they had. They were significantly better than us, virtually in every department for the majority of the game.

Swans manager Graham Potter -

“We didn't score the second goal and at 1-0 you always leave yourselves open to anything and that proved to be the case.

If you look at the game we had enough chances to score the second, but we didn't manage to do that.

The penalties, I haven't seen them back, but the first one, their boy is offside to start with and then I wasn't so sure, there didn't seem too much in it. The second one, I see why he's given it, but the ball is hit so hard at Leroy... but that can happen.”
 
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Kevin, re your corner analysis, the first QPR goal clearly shows the scorer Furlong impeding the goalkeeper in front of the ref. As the near post header comes in he cannot move as Furlong blocks him, leaning back, left arm outstretched and holding him back, although Nordfelt needs to be stronger in these situations.
The second goal and Nordfelt is rooted to his line and in the resultant scramble QPR players are queueing up to shoot.
Clearly we need a goalkeeper who can command his area and what is the goalkeeper coach doing about it in training every day, as this has been a long term problem that seemingly cannot be fixed?

Rotherham are another team that specialise in set pieces and they will have spent all week analysing the QPR match and others where we have succumbed weakly all season to corners and free kicks.
Our only tactics seem to be trying to keep possession so the opposition can’t attack us.
It’s got so bad that fans are expecting us to concede a goal at every corner.
I don’t understand why journos are not questioning Potter about this in their pre-match conference.
 
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I'll have to re-watch that one again Keith but in general he's rooted to the spot. At West Brom he failed when attempting to punch so you also wonder the tactics and instructions given out by the coaches. 6 have been scored from within the 6 yard area against us as per the most recent analysis article and that's also part of the problem along with the weakness at the front post.
 
Wow what a match that was. I thought Rotherham were excellent and didn’t deserve to lose or hopefully not get relegated after such a fighting display. Paul Warne planned well for this one. He had two, sometimes three players on James. They pressed us high and hard, they created many chances from corners and their no. 4, Welsh International Will Vaulks had one of the best throw-ins I’ve seen, they were like free kicks.

For us Nordfelt was again weak in the air, as were our defence on set pieces, but Nordfelt made up for it with some excellent saves to keep us in the match.
And it was one we could have so easily lost after being twice behind, and right up to the final whistle Rotherham pressed and pressed as they rained balls into our box.

Where on earth did the ref get 8 mins injury time from? It was a relief to hear the final whistle.

Shock was that McKay had a good game and scored, finally the real McKay turned up after a such disappointing season.
McBurnie was back to his best and scored two goals.
Next up Ipswich (already relegated) away on Easter Monday.
 
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Regarding the Swans third goal. I’ve watched it several times and the claims from Rotherham that Naughton deflected the ball with his arm/hand are in my opinion unfounded. He turned sideways to get out of the way as the shot came in, his arms were down and if there was any contact at all it was ball to hand.

The Rotherham local rag, in a big overreaction, are calling it “Handballgate”

Manager Warne “My players think it's a blatant handball" "It was the only goal out of seven that wasn't replayed on the big screen. There's an obvious reason for that. I'm not stupid. At 2-2, the game was swinging both ways."(Do the FA actually allow them to replay any controversial moments in a game?)

"These are big decisions that can make or break your year. If that one point has a negative effect on our season then that would be a disaster.” (Is Warne forgetting the two controversial penalty decisions that cost us the win and three points in the reverse fixture?)

Vaulks ended the debate: "The lad's (Naughton) admitted it twice on the pitch, saying it is a handball." (Really? I haven’t read this anywhere else.)
 
As an aside to the match report, I was sitting there in the stadium on Friday thinking about the match music.
If anybody’s interested here is what they play:

Gala - “Freed From Desire” nananananana.....(first half music as the team comes out)

Lisa Gerrard - “Now We Are Free” Gladiator movie theme tune (second half music as the team comes out)
 
No sign of Rangel in the QPR side that lost at home 1-2 to Blackburn last Friday, this after beating us 4-0 at Loftus Road the week before.
Ex-Swan Danny Graham scored one of Blackburn’s goals from the penalty spot, his 16th goal of the season.
 
Regarding the Swans third goal. I’ve watched it several times and the claims from Rotherham that Naughton deflected the ball with his arm/hand are in my opinion unfounded. He turned sideways to get out of the way as the shot came in, his arms were down and if there was any contact at all it was ball to hand.

The Rotherham local rag, in a big overreaction, are calling it “Handballgate”

Manager Warne “My players think it's a blatant handball" "It was the only goal out of seven that wasn't replayed on the big screen. There's an obvious reason for that. I'm not stupid. At 2-2, the game was swinging both ways."(Do the FA actually allow them to replay any controversial moments in a game?)

"These are big decisions that can make or break your year. If that one point has a negative effect on our season then that would be a disaster.” (Is Warne forgetting the two controversial penalty decisions that cost us the win and three points in the reverse fixture?)

Vaulks ended the debate: "The lad's (Naughton) admitted it twice on the pitch, saying it is a handball." (Really? I haven’t read this anywhere else.)

I couldn't see a handball either after watching the replays. naughton has admitted to it apparently but even so, I couldn't see much contact and like the Llorente one in the Champions league, if the ball is going to hit your body anyway, regardless of the arm, then I don't think it should count. I'm sure the rule is that handball is when the arm is an extension to the body?