Barnsley v Swans | Vital Football

Barnsley v Swans

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
Football’s a funny old game.
We recently suffered our heaviest defeat of the season, a 4-0 trouncing at Bournemouth, gifting them their best win of the season.
Bournemouth had previously lost 1-2 at home to Preston in their last match.
Yesterday, in the next game after playing us, they lost 3-2 at bottom club Derby. On Saturday Preston lost 1-2 at home to Cardiff.
In this unpredictable league, next match on Wednesday we travel to lowly Barnsley, who would be bottom of the table but for Derby’s points deduction.
Guess what, they’ve just got a new manager in place, Iranian born Sweden U-21’s coach Poya Asbaghi starts his new job today, and great timing for us as once again we face a team expecting “the new manager bounce”.
With 5 defeats in their last 6 matches they are in poor form. It all went downhill when head-coach Valerien Ismael left for West Brom in the summer, after taking Barnsley to the play-offs. Austrian Markus Schopp took charge, but with just 1 win in 16 matches his job became untenable.
Swans meanwhile, without suspended defender Ryan Bennett, could only draw at home to Blackpool last Saturday.
After once again fading badly in the second half of a match, question marks remain on the players being able to sustain the high fitness levels needed over 90 mins for Russell Martin’s football revolution.
The substitutions of Obafemi for leading scorer Piroe and Smith for midfield linchpin Ntcham didn’t work and made us less of a threat in the final stages.
With three games in a week again, it’s a balancing act to share the load and utilise the squad.
Having had a two week break our players lethargy second half was disconcerting, which post-match RM put down to possibly overtraining them during this period.
Hopefully we’ll get back on track with a couple of wins this week.
 
With the spotlight firmly on referee performances in our matches lately, rather than the football itself, here is the next appointed ref for the Barnsley match.
He officiated our first game under RM at Blackburn in August where we lost 2-1 to a penalty conceded by goalkeeper Steven Benda, who brought down Dolan after giving the ball away.

https://www.swanseacity.com/news/meet-officials-barnsley
 
Let the battle commence between two of the newest and youngest managers in the Championship:
Swans- Russell Martin 35 years old v Tykes- Poya Asbaghi 36 years old
 
The teams tonight:

Tykes: Brad Collins, Jordan Williams, Callum Styles, Callum Brittain, Cauley Woodrow (capt), Josh Benson, Jasper Moon, Romal Palmer, Dominik Frieser, Michal Helik, Devante Cole.
Subs: Jack Walton, Aaron Iseka, Carlton Morris, Claudio Gomes, Toby Sibbick, Victor Adeboyejo, Obbi Oulare.

Swans: Ben Hamer, Ryan Bennett, Kyle Naughton, Ben Cabango, Ethan Laird, Flynn Downes, Matt Grimes (capt), Jake Bidwell, Korey Smith, Jamie Paterson, Joel Piroe.
Subs: Steven Benda, Ryan Manning, Olivier Ntcham, Liam Cullen, Joel Latibeaudiere, Liam Walsh, Rhys Williams.
 
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HT: 0-0
A bore-fest, endless sideways passing and back.
A weak header by Laird straight to the goalkeeper instead of passing to the better placed Paterson in the 43’ and a shot just off target in the 45 minute by Piroe, that’s the highlight of our first half with overwhelming possession.
 
0-2
73’ Ntcham right footed tap-in, Manning assist with the cross into the box
79’ Paterson left footed shot from just inside the area, Piroe assist
 
FT: 0-2
Ntcham 64’ for Downes and Manning 72’ for Bidwell, turned the game
Up to that time we could not break down a Barnsley side who confined us to very little chances with their high press and tight marking.
With 79% possession and 828 passes completed Swans dominated the game. Barnsley were content to try and hold on to the draw to stop their calamitous slide down the table with one win in sixteen before tonight’s game.
Thankfully the new manager bounce did not work for Barnsley and tonight’s win took us up to 9th in the table, 4 points from a play-off place.
 
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No sign of Obafemi or Whittaker in the squad that travelled to Barnsley, Both played for the U-23’s on Monday, Whittaker scoring.
Cullen was preferred on the subs bench and came on for Piroe in the 86’.