Swansea v Oxford

K

keith margam

Vital Football Legend
Swansea v Oxford Sat 3 May 12:30

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All Championship matches kick off at 12:30 this Saturday for the final games of the season, hasn’t that come around quick.

Swans fans will be wondering what might have been if we’d have dumped Williams sooner, with us being so near to the play-offs under Sheehan.

On to the Oxford game and a chance to put that Millwall defeat behind us and go into the summer break with a win. The reverse fixture last November resulted in a 1-2 win, Vipotnik and Bianchini the scorers, ending our goal drought of over 9 hours of football without scoring and a first victory in seven games. Since then Gary Rowett has taken over from Des Buckingham and they have improved. Last time out Oxford beat Sunderland 2-0 at the Kassam Stadium to end their relegation worries and will come to Swansea full of confidence.

Swansea links, ex-loanee from Norwich last season Przemysław Płacheta now plays for Oxford.

Famous ex-Swan Jeremy Charles used to play for Oxford and is now a Corporate host there on match days as well as being a director of a nationwide car leasing company.

Welsh internationals Mark Harris and Will Volkes also play for the U’s.

We hope Harry Darling can play after a late injury ruled him out of the Millwall match. The type of injury and the extent of it is not known yet.

We also hope our forwards have got their shooting boots on after so many missed chances at Millwall.
 
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I watched Leeds beat a poor looking 5th in the table Bristol City team 4-0 last night at Elland Road, this coming off the back of their 6-0 trouncing of Stoke.

We did much better against them and drew 2-2 there and lost unluckily 3-4 at home through a Cabango own goal.

If we’d had a decent striker and got rid of Williams earlier we could have made the play-offs easily. Millwall, another play-off contender beat us with a lucky deflection for the only goal at The Den last Saturday. We were the better team second-half and missed several chances to score. We also recently beat 4th place Sunderland on their own patch as well.

It’s frustrating how close we’ve come to the play-offs after Sheehan has turned our season around.

So many points were dropped and goals conceded previously through Williams’ insistence on the possession game. His naive tactics of playing the ball out from the back coupled with his strange and untimely substitutions cost us so many points in games.

If we can keep this team together, with a few additions, especially a decent striker, we can look forward to a much better season next time.

For now, just one more push to finish this season on a high with a win against Oxford on Saturday.
 
Alan Sheehan record since taking over on 17/1/25:

P12 W7 D2 L3 F14 A7

Form table over the last 12 games:

1 Burnley 32 points

2 Leeds 25 points

3 Millwall 24 points

4 Swansea 23 points

5 Bristol 21 points

6 Luton 21 points
 
Oxford away record:

P22 W2 D8 L12 F15 A33

Swans home record:

P22 W10 D5 L7 F30 A21


Form Guide last 6 matches:

Oxford W3 D1 L2 F6 A5

Swans W5 D0 L1 F8 A2


Leading scorers:

Oxford - Mark Harris 6

Swans - Liam Cullen 10
 
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It's a great feeling actually to know we can be on the beach for this one and give Naughton and Allen a great send off.

I can't say I'm overly convinced Sheehan is the right choice long term and the perfect fit but fair play he's done an amazing job when it looked like we couldn't buy a win.

But the fact we'll finish in the top half is incredible.
 
3 years a bit much for let's be honest and unproven manager at this level but it's likely what got him to sign. Can't blame the club at all l, he's earned it. I just hope he can do the job over the long term. Bring in new players and make it all work.
 
For me, sentiment aside, we pick the best team and go all out for the win and a top ten spot.
A feat which would be remarkable and an amazing turn around to the season, where we were on our knees and threatened with relegation when Williams departed and Sheehan took over.
In the way are 10th placed West Brom, three matches without a win. They are at home to Luton who may need to win to stay up and have won their last three games.
 
A poor show from our back 4 and keeper today. Sheehan will be frustrated how we allowed them back in it so soon after scoring on 3 separate occasions. Luckily it had no meaning.

We couldn't deal with balls in the air today and that's a rare error from oBrien at the end to deny us a win.
 
Swansea 3 (Eom 23’, Ronald 57’, Cullen 82’)

Oxford 3 (Leigh 40’, Helik 62’, Placheta 93’)

Ex-Swan (inevitably) Placheta was gifted the equalising goal in the dying minutes of this match.

O’Brien inexplicably passed the ball to nobody and into the empty space right in front of goal to throw away the win and three points, what on earth was he thinking, why didn’t he just clear the ball upfield.

It was all out attacking by both teams but Swans were unable to convert their many chances.

Our defending was very poor today, unusually so since Sheehan had tightened us up at the back since he took over. We missed Darling with his mystery knee injury for the second game running, sorry I don’t rate Delcroix. Also Key was exposed a few times, he’s good in attack but suspect in defence.

To score three goals at home and not win was wasteful, the effort and endeavour were there, but too many times we were exposed in defence with Oxford allowed to come back and equalise three times.

Match control needs working on when we take the lead, something Sheehan will be aware of after today.
 
Agree Keith, I haven't been convinced on Delcroix either. Doesn't look like a centre half to me. Looks a bit weak/slow to react.

A rare one for O'Brien and should know better. Sheehan the type who will hate that type of goal to concede.
 
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Attack Momentum. We dominated majority of the game, poor how easily we allowed them back in the game on so many occasions.
 
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