Swans v Reading | Vital Football

Swans v Reading

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
In the last game of three matches in seven days we entertain Reading at the Swansea.com stadium.
They are hovering just above the relegation zone, but their away form is better than their home form, winning three from the last six away games.
They’ve just played two home matches drawing with Forest last Saturday and losing to Sheff Utd on Tuesday night.
We last met away in the Carabao Cup First Round on 10 August where we won 0-3, but Reading fielded a team of youngsters that night. It was Russell Martin’s first win, coming a few days after his first match ended in defeat at Blackburn.
This month they were deducted 6 points due to a breach of EFL rules.
They should be on 23 points, a point behind us, but are now on 17 points and in 20th place.
Veljko Paunovic is in his second season as their manager.
They’ve just signed striker Andy Carroll on a short term deal, he always seems to score against us and usually dominates the aerial battles, so one to look out for.
Swans will be looking for a win to compensate for conceding a late goal against Blackpool last Saturday for the draw and dropping two points.
On Wednesday night they had a comfortable 0-2 win at Barnsley to bring them within four points of a play-off place
 
Swans:
Ben Hamer, Ryan Bennett, Kyle Naughton, Rhys Williams, Ethan Laird, Korey Smith, Matt Grimes (c), Ryan Manning, Olivier Ntcham, Jamie Paterson, Joel Piroe.
Subs: Steven Benda, Flynn Downes, Brandon Cooper, Liam Cullen, Joel Latibeaudiere, Jake Bidwell, Liam Walsh.

Reading:
Luke Southwood, Tom Holmes, Alen Halilovic, Andy Carroll, John Swift, Danny Drinkwater, Andy Yiadom (c), Tom Dele-Bashiru, Baba Rahman, Scott Dann, Josh Laurent.
Subs: Rafael Cabral, Dejan Tetek, Femi Azeez, Mamadi Camara, George Puscas, Tyrell Ashcroft, Kelvin Abrefa.
 
The “third match in a week” syndrome struck again for the third consecutive time with this Jekyll and Hyde team as Reading waltzed through us with ease.
It was a disastrous afternoon’s football for the Swans conceding twice straight after scoring, and eventually going down 2-3 to Reading.
With 74% possession 19 shots 10 on target they still couldn’t win.
Really awful defending saw the veteran Andy Carroll beat two defenders for pace to score his third goal in four seasons and Drinkwater scored his first goal in four years, yes that’s how bad be were.
In my opinion Carroll was yards offside for his goal but the linesman who couldn’t keep up with play kept his flag down.
No trouble from the other linesman sticking his flag up for offside when Piroe slotted home, a very close decision. Grimes, Ntcham, Piroe and Naughton all went close but Reading’s goal led a charmed life as they held on for the win.
I can see why Rhys Williams hasn’t been able to break into the side as he was unimpressive once again. So was Laird, who was unable to beat his marker throughout and resorted to passing back rather than take on his man.
When you concede three goals at home you don’t deserve to win and that was the case today.
RM said after the match - we were not good enough, there was a lack of intensity, a lack of energy, and a lack of willingness to run.
 
All three goals elementary errors -
Grimes poor pass intercepted, leading up to first goal, Laird out of position, Bennett beaten.
Naughton and Williams beaten by pace of (off-side) old man Carroll, then he beat them both again when they caught him up, second goal.
First Smith passing back to the closely marked Naughton, he couldn’t control the ball and lost it, resulting in the third goal.
 
So, we were done by officialdom for the second match running, last week solid penalty shouts, this week off-side decisions.
Seen the footage, seen the photos.
The first wrong decision in the Reading match was when Piroe was ruled offside for his goal. Yes he was ahead of the Reading defenders but not Laird and the ball -
“A player is in an offside position if any part of the player's head, body or feet is closer to the opponents goal line than both the ball and the second last opponent.”
The second wrong decision was the Carroll one. Carroll was way ahead of Williams when the ball was kicked forward.
One goal more for Swansea, one goal less for Reading, the result should have been 4-2 in our favour.