Preston v Swans | Vital Football

Preston v Swans

K

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
Our first league fixture of the season and it couldn’t come any tougher.
Preston have basically got the same team that came so close to the play-offs last season, whilst we’ve lost Brewster, Gallagher, Van der Hoorn and Celina so far.
They are way ahead of us preparation wise, and have already got several friendly matches under their belt, including draws against Sheffield Utd and Burnley and a 4-0 Carabao Cup win over Mansfield, so you can see we are up against it.
There’s not much hope that we’ll get anything from this match, judging by our lack of fire power up front and weak goalkeeping against Newport, but we’ll try and be optimistic about it.
 
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It’s been a traumatic start to the season.
The ongoing Coronavirus outbreak and its effect on football with empty stadiums and no date on when fans can return.
The Academy downgraded from Category 1 to Category 2, despite assurances to the contrary, and with it our source of the best young talent consequently curtailed.
Our under contract Chairman deciding to up sticks and leave at the first call from another club, and at the worst possible time, just half way through his “rescue” plan, so much for honour and loyalty then.
The annual culling of our best players by our parsimonious owners, seven of the squad from the Brentford semi-final play-off match of six weeks ago are gone.
A shambles of a pre-season with the 7-1 trouncing by Southampton and the embarrassing 2-0 cup defeat to lowly League 2 side Newport.
It can only get better, surely, starting tomorrow at Preston.
 
Let’s hope “the non-negotiables of football” missing last week at Newport according to SC, will be back on show today.
Predicted Swansea XI:
3-5-2
Woodman;
Cabango, Guehi, Rodon;
Roberts, Smith, Grimes (C), Gibbs-White; Bidwell;
Ayew, Lowe.
With a back three of centre backs all right footed -
Rodon right footed
Guehi right footed
Cabango right footed
- maybe we should be looking to fill the fourth centre-back spot in the squad with a left footed centre-back and the advantages this would bring passing out from the back?
The centre-backs linked to us so far-
Daniel Ayala right footed (ex-Boro and Liverpool - free agent)
Derrick Williams left footed (Blackburn- valued at 540k on Transfer Market, manager Mowbray values him at double that).
 
The line ups:
Swansea City: Freddie Woodman; Ben Cabango, Joe Rodon, Marc Guehi; Connor Roberts, Korey Smith, Matt Grimes (captain), Jake Bidwell; Morgan Gibbs-White; Jamal Lowe, Andre Ayew.
Substitutes: Steven Benda, Kyle Naughton, Jay Fulton, Wayne Routledge, Yan Dhanda, Kristoffer Peterson, Liam Cullen.

Preston North End: Connor Ripley, Ben Pearson, Ben Davies, Alan Browne (captain), Jordan Storey, Andrew Hughes, Ryan Ledson, Tom Barkhuizen, Scott Sinclair, Billy Bodin, Brad Potts.
Substitutes: Matt Hudson, Patrick Bauer, Hayden Stockley, Sean Maguire, Joe Rafferty, Paul Gallagher, Josh Harrop.
 
HT Preston 0 - Swans 0
Possession: 51% - 49%
Shots: 3 - 3
On target: 1 - 0
Corners: 0 - 3
Offside: 2 - 3
Fouls: 7 - 6
 
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53’ Preston 0 - Swans 1 (Gibbs-White)
Right footed close range shot to centre of the goal. Assist - Bidwell cross.
Our first shot on target.
 
FT Preston 0 - Swans 1
Get in there!
Amidst all the doom and gloom we secure a very tough win at Preston.
The three returning defenders obviously made the difference.
A win and a clean sheet, can’t be bad. The optimism returns.
 
FT Preston 0 - Swans 1
Possession: 60% - 40%
Shots: 10 - 6
On target: 4 - 1
Corners: 2 - 3
Offside: 2 - 5
Fouls: 16 - 11
Cards: 0 - 0
 
Here’s an eye-catching result. Play-0ff finalists Brentford lost 1-0 at Birmingham, our next opponents, their first win in 17 games.
Their BMW front line of Benrahma, Mbeumo, and Watkins have been broken up, only Mbeumo remains and played today. Watkins has gone to Villa for £28m and Benrahma is in limbo and left out of the team due to a potential £20m move to Villa, who are stalling on the price, with West Ham also linked.
Birmingham now have ex-Boro and Forest manager Karanka in charge. We play them at the Liberty next Saturday.
 
Alex Neil:
"I don't think there was a lot in it. In the first half we had little periods when we were on top, but our final ball let us down. There wasn't much in it. These games are going to be decided by making sure you don't give the ball away cheaply, which I thought we did too often, making sure you don't make silly mistakes defensively and making sure if you get chances you are clinical.If you get an opportunity you need to make sure you put it away and be clinical. We created as many chances as they did. The difference is they had the ball in the back of the net and we didn't."
 
Steve Cooper:
"It was a tough game but our performance was good. In the first half we got into some good positions and didn't quite capitalise on them. We looked a real threat and kept it going in the second half. Bidwell should have put us 1-0 up - we've watched it back and he's onside. It would have been a fantastic goal but, as Bidwell does, he keeps going and gets in again and Gibbs-White gets in the six-yard box to put it in, a brilliant team goal. We had to show the other side of the game then to see out the result. A lot of balls in our box but Freddie Woodman hasn't really had a save to make which tells you all about the heart and soul of the latter stages. A really good start."
 
I thought we played ok in the game, nothing special but its still early days. Preston were poor but its a clean sheet and another opening day win to get us up and running.
 
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