Derby v Swansea

K

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
Derby v Swansea Sat 14 Feb 15:00

Next up is another tough one, we’re off to the East Midlands and the cathedral city of Derby, home to Rolls Royce, Alstom and Toyota.

Derby play at the 33,597 capacity Pride Park, adjacent to the River Derwent, 184 miles and 3-1/2 hours away from Swansea. It’s a 14min walk (0.8 miles) to the stadium from the train station and city centre.

Derby have already beaten us on our own patch 1-2 on 25 Nov with only 27% possession. Swans being unable to turn their superior possession into chances.

Since then we have turned things around under Matos and will give Derby a much sterner test.

Derby gained promotion to the Championship in 23/24 season and after a season of struggling they avoided relegation by one point. John Eustace took over from Paul Warne exactly a year ago and this season has turned their form around and they presently sit two points off the play-offs.

We meet up again with ex-Swan Rhian Brewster who has scored four goals for Derby this season, although he has missed seven games through injury. He joined Derby as a free agent last summer after running down his contract at Sheff Utd.
 
After the impressive win over the Owls on Sunday one can’t help looking at the league table.

There are eight clubs between us and the last play-off spot with only five points separating them. Firstly it goes to show how congested the top half of the table is at the moment and secondly how wide open it is this season to progress for any team that can go on a winning run.

The Swans have gone from relegation candidates to possible play-off contenders under Vitor Matos in the 11 weeks he has been here.

Let’s look at his record:

Matos took over on Mon 24 Nov on a 4 year contract:

Pos20 P16 W4 D5 L7 F15 A22 Pts17


On Tue 25 Nov in his first game in charge we lost at home 1-2 to Derby and the team were booed off:

Pos20 P17 W4 D5 L8 F16 A24 Pts17


On Sat 29 Nov after a 3-2 away defeat at West Brom we were only outside the bottom three on goal difference:

Pos21 P18 W4 D5 L9 F18 A27 Pts17


Since then we have taken 25 points from 13 games:

Pos15 P31 W12 D6 L13 F38 A37 Pts42


There are 15 matches left and 45 points on offer:


14/2 Derby v Swans 15:00

21/2 Swans v Bristol City 12:30

24/2 Swans v Preston 19:45

28/2 Ipswich v Swans 15:00



7/3 Swans v Stoke 15:00

10/3 Portsmouth v Swans 19:45

14/3 Wrexham v Swans 15:00

21/3 Swans v Coventry 15:00



3/4 Sheff Utd v Swans 15:00

6/4 Swans v Middlesbrough 15:00

11/4 Leicester v Swans 15:00

18/4 Swans v Southampton 15:00

21/4 QPR v Swans 19:45

25/4 Norwich v Swans 15:00



2/5 Swans v Charlton 12:30
 
69’ 2-0 systems back to normal then, one shot on target so far and weak defending.
Stamenic sleeping and out jumped from a corner by 6’4” Agyemang. The corner came after Vigouroux dropped the ball as he was bustled out in the box, should have been a free kick but no foul given.
81’ This is a poor watch as Tymon skies a shot over the bar.
83’ another corner for Derby and another free header saved.
89’ Another Derby 20 yard shot saved
Six minutes added time
91’ Ref giving us nothing since I’ve been watching, Galbraith legs taken away, no booking.
 
Last edited:
FT: 2-0
Probably one of the worst performances I’ve seen under Matos.
I only saw part of it granted, but I’m glad I didn’t see the rest.
Defence a shambles, blunt in the final third and old boy comes back to haunt us.
Why do we get our hopes up only to be let down, so disappointing.
We were passing it around in our half at the end instead of attacking the ball.
Brewster unmarked from a corner for the first, Agmeyang out jumping the static Stamenic for the second. Two poor goals to concede and they did it with 28% possession.
 
Didn’t see the game today but very disappointing considering they are near the bottom of the table for home form. I didn’t expect an easy game of course but thought we’d at least score a goal today. Definitely not the end of the world but an opportunity missed to push on.

Don’t think play offs is gone yet but even more unlikely now than it already was. I’m Confident that we can challenge next season with some good summer recruitment and a preseason for Matos.
 
keith margam said:
FT: 2-0
Probably one of the worst performances I’ve seen under Matos.
I only saw part of it granted, but I’m glad I didn’t see the rest.
Defence a shambles, blunt in the final third and old boy comes back to haunt us.
Why do we get our hopes up only to be let down, so disappointing.
We were passing it around in our half at the end instead of attacking the ball.
Brewster unmarked from a corner for the first, Agmeyang out jumping the static Stamenic for the second. Two poor goals to concede and they did it with 28% possession.
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I thought the same, Keith. Very disappointing - mostly because I thought Derby were another bog standard Championship side that offered no threat in open play. They just scored 2 good corner goals.

But then again, our total lack of open play creativity is an on-going issue for us. The likes of Eom, Cullen and Ronald offer nowhere near enough to be regularly starting games for us. Eom is probably the least deserving of that but I'd like to see recruit in better in all those positions in the Summer.
 
I think we can say on that performance we are not going to challenge for the play-offs this season. Our away form is letting us down badly, it’s just not good enough. Another game of two halves, where we dominated the first-half without being able to score then conceded within two minutes of the restart and it was downhill from there.

We lost to an average Derby team that hadn’t won at home since New Year’s Day and we could have played another ninety minutes and not scored.

We were still passing back in added time instead of attacking the ball, what tactics are those, 95 back passes according to the stats!
 
VitalSwansea said:
I thought the same, Keith. Very disappointing - mostly because I thought Derby were another bog standard Championship side that offered no threat in open play. They just scored 2 good corner goals.

But then again, our total lack of open play creativity is an on-going issue for us. The likes of Eom, Cullen and Ronald offer nowhere near enough to be regularly starting games for us. Eom is probably the least deserving of that but I'd like to see recruit in better in all those positions in the Summer.
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Agree with those names however all of them are favourites of Matos so they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon unfortunately. Yesterday was crying out for creativity and to go slightly away from our usual pressing, did the game need Cullen and Franco? No, Derby were always going to play a low block at home, just look at the Ipswich game. The midfield was crying out for Yalcouye and Galbraith, and if Widell is fit enough for the bench then he’s fit enough to start. Matos needs to alter his approach against teams like this going into next season.

My other worry looking ahead is Ben and Burgess, surely you need a ball playing centre half alongside one of them - their lack of ability to beat a press from the opposition forward, carry the ball out from the back, play a ball that splits the opposition lines is alarming. Darling did that to account for Cabango’s weaknesses but now he’s got a carbon copy next to him. One is the club captain, the other is on a big wage. Are they droppable for Matos to go to that next level?
 
Good post trueswan16. Agree with both your points. The centre-back pairing is lacking a Darling type player. He could also be a threat aerially in the opposition box, contributing with goals.
Cabango joins the attack for set pieces but his headers are nearly always wayward.
 
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