Swansea v Burnley

[jackaway]

Swansea v Burnley Saturday 15 March 15:00
Wednesday night’s unlucky defeat at Watford, in which one mistake led to the only goal of the match, resulted in our first defeat in four matches.
It was a relatively poor first-half for the Swans and Franco’s crazy pass-back straight to Watford’s Tom Ince which led to that gift of a goal will give him nightmares. The second-half we more or less dominated but just couldn’t find that elusive equaliser. What we can’t fault though is the effort the players put in to try and salvage the match.
There is little recovery time between matches and with the players not arriving home until the early hours of Thursday morning it’s a tough ask for them to go again on Saturday. Will Sheehan juggle the team or stick with the same selection he’s played since taking temporary charge?
Darling missed the Watford match after going off injured against Boro but it’s being reported that he will be fit for Saturday. Just as well because his replacement at Watford, loanee Hannes Delacroix, is unable to play against his parent club.
It’s a huge match coming up then as we welcome high-flying Burnley, the team with the best defence in the Championship, helped in no small way by ex-Swan, right-back Connor Roberts. They have only conceded 6 goals in their 18 away games this season.
Burnley will have the advantage of an extra recovery day as they played Tuesday night, a 1-1 home draw with West Brom.

[Estoban]

Andy resigns

https://www.swanseacity.com/news/clu...t-andy-coleman

[Estoban]

Sheehan on Burnley, Press Conference link -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoKro7Hthhc

[Estoban]

Just watching Bristol C v Norwich, Robins 2-0 up after 23 minutes to move into the play-offs if they win. Surprisingly we beat Bristol City last month 0-1 at Ashton gate under Williams.
The match commentator just made a statement that applies very much to our club -
“You can’t sell your best players and expect success” - so true over the years of American rule.

[jackaway]

Match report

https://www.swanseacity.com/news/rep...ty-0-burnley-2

[jackaway]

Match highlights

https://www.skysports.com/football/v...hip-highlights

[jackaway]

Reaction from Sheehan after the match

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEVWJP61WQ

[jackaway]

Swansea 0 - Burnley 2 (Brownhill 4’, Anthony 22’)
It was a hugely disappointing game yesterday in front of a sparse crowd.
To know the game was over after four minutes spoilt the match and silenced our fans.
It took only a few minutes for Burnley to open us up, the weak defender right-back Key slipped on the ball and fell over leaving Edwards to run free and cross for Brownhill to score with ease. We just couldn’t keep possession and our lack of physicality and pace was obvious and for the second game running we were outmuscled. Burnley just kept on taking the ball off us and with their high-press were overrunning us. The naive Swans tactics of pumping long balls out of defence played right into Burnley’s hands, their giant 6’4” French centre-back Esteve sweeping up every high ball, beating Vipotnik every time.
When we were able to attack we were caught on the counter, which led to Burnley’s second goal after 22 minutes, a goalmouth scramble with Anthony firing home at the second attempt.
It was little better from Swans second-half, our midfield of Franco and O’Brien were outplayed and were substituted with Fulton and Cooper but it made little difference.
With only one shot on target throughout to show for swans endeavours the match was over long before the end.
Special mention for the biased Oliver Langford as once again we got nothing from the referee. A blatant penalty appeal for hand ball turned down as Franco’s goal bound shot hit Riley’s arm. Plus Burnley were allowed to get away with their spoiling tactics, petty fouling and bullying us off the ball to great effect.
Worrying times for Swansea after consecutive defeats drag us back into the relegation mix and now just six points away from the bottom three.
We have to sit on that poor showing from the players for two weeks until the next match and it couldn’t be a worse fixture - Leeds away.

[Estoban]

Extended highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA3YyCzQ7p8

[Estoban]

On that showing yesterday we are a million miles away from getting back to the PL.
Well, what do you expect with a bunch of mainly L1 standard players.
This after seven years of cut backs every season since relegation, selling our best players and replacing them with inferior ones from the lower leagues, the result was there for all to see yesterday.
Burnley rarely got out of training ground mode yesterday, destroying any weak resistance from Swansea within a few minutes and proceeded to stroll through the match without breaking sweat, and watch on at the feeble attempts to play football by Swansea.
If we somehow manage to avoid relegation we need the new owners to step up to the plate in the summer.
An experienced Chairman and an experienced manager must be appointed and then a big clear out of players is needed. No more searching the lower leagues for the cheap options.