[themaclad]

Swansea City 4 Piroe 2 Allen Darling Preston North End2 Cannon Parrott

Swansea starting XI: Fisher; Darling, Cabango, Wood, Latibeaudiere; Allen (Fulton, 62), Grimes; Cullen (Walsh, 62), Cooper (Ntcham, 75), Manning; Piroe (Whittaker, 90+7). Subs not used: Sondergaard, Paterson, Cundle.

PNE starting XI: Woodman; Storey (Brady, 45), Lindsay (McCann, 45), Hughes; Potts, Whiteman (Diaby, 45), Ledson (Onomah, 90+1), Johnson, Fernández; Cannon, Delap (Parrott, 69). Subs not used: Cornell, Woodburn.

Attendance: 15,433 (261 PNE pre-sales).

Referee: Mr O Langford.

A typical Championship game 6 goals, two red cards and mass brawl lasting minutes and a referee whose name when translated into Spanish becomes Juan Kerr
The most bizarre bit of the journey down was in the village where I live someone was either moving in or moving out, the two removal vans that they had were from Swansea, coincidence or what?
Apart from the overturned lorry near Wigan the journey down was decent arrived at the ground a full two hours 15 minutes before kick off
Cople of laps rond the ground the retail park andif I had known what the first half was gong to be like would have down the 8 mile riverside walk to Pontedawe

FIRST HALF

Four of the players had a pre kick off chat obviously it went like this pass it around gain easy thrown in, from throw lose possession conceded goal, 67 seconds later one down Piroe wasn't going to miss from 10 yards with absolutely no one near him.
In truth did well to get to 35 minutes only two down as both midfield and defence seemed to have been sucked into a black hole, Whiteman was unable to tackle and Lindsay has occasional games were he can look positively clueless this was one of those games, he obviously wanted to congratulate Piroe by exchanging shirts twice in the first couple of minutes, should have been booked wasn't, tried again shortly later, got away with it again but did finally manage to pick up a card for shirt pulling later in the half.
City had joy down both flanks and down the centre basically the entire pitch they had joy as we simply didnt turn up.
Piroe, twice Cullen and Darling missed easy chances, but after Manning found space down the Swans left crossed the ball into the box wer Allen wrong footed a defender before potting in the bottom left corner.
Three down before half time, free kick from the right curled in, only player within miles of the ball was Harry Darling nods home 3 down, to sum up our first half we had a free kick on the left just outside the box Whiteman was only stopped by putting it in the Costa Coffee outlet outside the ground by the home stand behind the goal

SECOND HALF

Three substitutions at half time gone Storey, Lindsay and Whiteman repaced by Brady, Bambo and a welcome return for McCann, within two minutes free kick on our left ball into box fired home by Cannon may have been a touch of hand ball but wasn't given.  The goal rattled the hosts they were not as assured on the ball as we closed them down and started to slow the game down as they had done from the early stages of the game(ye we all do it but the Swans are good at it)
My pet hate players going down injured with severe cranial fractures only to recover within seconds after water has been sprayed on their nadgers.
To make matters worse Cannon was booked for an apparent dive in teh area, he was then wrestled to the ground by Cabango who was last man nothing given, just coming to the boil
Parrott then on for the ineffective Delap( a common phrase) instant return lovely finish when played through game on 3-2
City should have wrapped it up when Piroe and Ntcham completed balls up a chance after taking teh ball round Woodman
Alvaro hit the side netting possibly should have done better and then the time bomb which had slowly been ticking away exploded.
A Swans player was lying dead after being run through with a rusty broadsword, the home side played the ball out of play we didn't give it them back
The Swans then had another player inured near the half way line Mr Kerr didn't stop play and suddenly it's WWF time Lowe and Allen giving it full monty then everyone else on the pitch and from the coaching staff were involved, some full on grappling.
Sadly have to put some of the blame on the referee who gave some baffling decisions, anyway upshot Lowe and Allen red carded, suspect there were be more red cards issued when the video is watched suspect Alvaro will get red and the guy who was trying to remove his head from his body
The delay basically killed any chances of a comeback and right at the death more defending of the inept type let Piroe through to pot past Woodman they celebrated in front of our bench,.
The next match could be interesting we won't forget Mr Martin.


4 am return my favourite

Swansea City head coach Russell Martin:

"Some of the build-up was brilliant but they came with such an aggressive press that once we bypassed that it was just game on to go and try to score.

"We scored two really good goals and a set-piece. Conceding so soon after half-time was so frustrating, especially from a set-piece. It just changed how the game looked really.

"Preston threw caution to the wind and committed so many bodies forward. You can see why they have done so well this season. They're a powerful team, really good at what they do.

"But the fight the lads are showing, some of the courage, even at 3-2, to play from the back was immense. We got the fourth goal we deserved, a brilliant finish from Joel [Piroe], and that was a nice way to finish it."

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