Swansea v Middlesboro

[jackaway]

The injury time penalty award against Stoke on Wednesday, which gave the Swans three points and a rare win, was memorable. It’s not often decisions have favoured us in matches with Stoke over the years so they tend to stand out. The win keeps us in touch with second place Brentford and two games in hand.
Saturday we are at the Liberty and Middlesboro are the visitors. We lost the corresponding away fixture 2-1.
Let’s hope for a better result at home than the last time, where we were turned over by Bristol City after taking the lead. Their three goals were the result of individual errors, one by defender Guehi and two by goalkeeper Woodman.
Middlesboro will be tough to beat, they won their last match 1-2 away to Coventry on Tuesday night (Coventry had beaten Brentford 2-0 last home match).
Middlesboro have a good away record with four wins in the last six games, conceding only five goals.
Conversely we have a good home record too, with four wins in the last six games, conceding five goals, which suggests it will be a tight contest.
The match will be shown live on Sky Sports, the second of five of our matches being shown live on Sky this month.

[Estoban]

Today’s line up -

Swansea City: Freddie Woodman; Connor Roberts, Kyle Naughton, Ben Cabango, Marc Guehi, Ryan Manning; Korey Smith, Jay Fulton, Matt Grimes (captain), Conor Hourihane; Andre Ayew.

Substitutes: Ben Hamer, Joel Latibeaudiere, Ryan Bennett, Jake Bidwell, Jamal Lowe, Yan Dhanda, Ollie Cooper, Morgan Whittaker, Paul Arriola.

Middlesbrough: Marcus Bettinelli, Anfernee Dijksteel, Grant Hall, Sam Morsy, Dael Fry, Yannick Bolasie, Jonny Howson (captain), Paddy McNair, Duncan Watmore, George Saville, Marc Bola.

Substitutes: Jordan Archer, Chuba Akpom, Marvin Johnson, Djed Spence, Neeskens Kebano, Darnell Fisher, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing.

[Estoban]

HT: 1-0 Ayew 40’ close range left footed shot

[Estoban]

FT 2-1
1-1 91’ Mersy deflected shot off Fulton
2-1 97’ Ayew penalty after Bidwell brought down
Ayew brace and he’s now on 13 goals for the season.
Late late show for the Swans but another three points.

[Iolo]

A lot of fuss over their “disallowed” goal. How could the ref “allow” it when he’d already blown up for a foul.
Also an outcry for the penalty. I thought it was a clear foul and so did the ref. Warnock from 50 yards away erupted and said it wasn’t.
Warnock should be reprimanded for his team and coaching staff surrounding the officials at the end of the match and giving them verbals. Also when interviewed afterwards he alluded to the refs favouring Swansea and Cooper because his father was a top ref. You’ve got to laugh at that. The bad loser should be fined and banned.
People have short memories, the Swans have regularly been penalised by poor refereeing decisions over the years, we’ve just had to get on with it.

[jackaway]

Match highlights -
https://www.swanseacity.com/news/highlights-swansea-city-v-middlesbrough-0