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Swansea v Reading
After a convincing win at Barnsley on Wednesday night we’re home again for the third match in seven days against Reading on Saturday.
Reading have just been deducted 6 points for FFP misdemeanours and consequently sit just above the relegation places.
They seem to play better away than home with three away wins out of the last six - Fulham, Cardiff and Birmingham.
They’ve just signed our old adversary, 32 year old, 6’ 4” free agent Andy Carroll, who always seems to score against us. Liverpool paid £35m for him in 2011, a British record at the time.
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It may have been convincing in the end but boy it was boring until the late goals.
We can expect all opposing teams to high press us and confine us to passing the ball to death in our own half until we make a mistake and lose possession.
Reading are no slouches, they’ve beaten league leaders Fulham on their own patch, so expect a hard game.
The weather is going to be rough on Saturday with storm “Arwen” rolling in, a yellow warning in place for most of Wales, high winds and travel disruption expected, so hang on to your hats.
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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.
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Lowly Reading surprised us yesterday and sorted us out good and proper. Helped by schoolboy defending from us they deserved their win.
Ryan Williams replaced Ben Cabango and Korey Smith started instead of Flynn Downes and they were probably part of the reason we lost the match.
The see-saw play started early as Reading scored straight after we scored - twice!
Paterson 3’ - Bashiru 4’
Manning 49’ - Drinkwater 50’
.........with a 30’ Carroll goal sandwiched in-between, the ball chipped over our static defence for Carroll to run onto, he looked well off-side. Williams and Naughton caught him up but he dummied them both to score only his third goal in four seasons!
We had lots of chances with an unbelievable 19 shots, 10 on target but couldn’t get the equaliser with 74% possession. Piroe did get the ball in the net but was ruled off-side.
Our defence looked vulnerable every time Reading attacked and we missed the defensive qualities of Downes, with Williams looking a poor replacement for Cabango. Downes eventually came on at 63’ for Smith and Reading stopped scoring after that.
It seems we cannot play three matches in a week, losing for the third time this season in the last match of that sequence.
Laird was nullified on the right and was blocked by their full back every time.
Back to the drawing board then, we have no mid-week match next week so plenty of time on the training pitch to sort things out.
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Down to earth with a bump yesterday after the highs of the Barnsley win on Wednesday.
https://www.swanseacity.com/news/rep...ty-2-reading-3
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Defensive errors cost us big time yesterday. You do not concede three goals at home if you want to do anything in this league.
Reading were no great shakes but tore us a new one yesterday and it was hard to watch.
Even conceding three goals we had lots of chances to compensate for our abysmal defending. Piroe netted but was ruled offside, Grimes, Ntcham, Naughton and Piroe all went close but it was not to be.
A very frustrating afternoon was had by all.