Pride in the Shirt-Silky Swans prevail...

Pride in the Shirt-Silky Swans prevail...


At Sunday's Premier League match at the Liberty Stadium I was the proud buyer of this year's Swansea first team top(prem badges and all) as the Adidas stock back-up had arrived and the Club cutely provided a Sales caravan outside in the beautiful sunshine at the base of the West Stand.Proudly clutching my newly bought swag(and no less proudly wearing some of my other Swans colours) I watched the first half of Chelsea's demolition of Bolton on the Lib's bigger than last year's TV screens in the concourse.




We had known ,of course, of Stoke City's physical prowess and their admirable progress in this League over the past few seasons.On Thursday evening they had beaten Besiktas 2-1 in the Europa cup, and their line up for Sunday showed 9 changes to that night's team,with Manager Tony Pulis going with what many would call(pacey Matty Etherington-injury absence) his strongest side.

Meanwhile,Leon Britton's back problems meant he too was an absentee for us and perhaps Brendan Rodgers' decision to replace him with Wayne Routledge and to swap Danny Graham for Leroy Lita up front gave a clue to Swansea's attacking intent.

We started well with Rangel's early sublime ball to Dyer over the top of Marc Wilson giving the Swans very own buzz-flier an opportunity to angularly advance on goal,from where he unluckily allowed the ball to drift a little too far ahead and the chance was gone.A couple of minutes later,Danny Graham was very close to Sinclair's super chip from the left to the far post and Swansea's start had been encouraging.Both sides were competing for every ball and
the muscularity of some Stoke tackling-Wilkinson(booked) and Shawcross(not) the glaring examples.

The breakthrough came early,in the 9th minute, and was a direct result of pace.Allen threaded Routledge through in the inside left channel(in the area but going wider) and the skilful forward showed Shawcross just enough ball for commitment to a tackle and then moved it last minute with a touch that meant the subsequent sweeping away of his legs brooked no argument from Mike Jones in awarding the pen.Scott Sinclair did what Scott Sinclair does-scored, with a neat quality strike into and beyond Begovic's reach and perfectly in the corner of the net.Is it my
imagination,or did SS strike this one a little harder than previous ones? Whatever,he knows damn well what he's doing and the Liberty rocked.

The first half flashed by(for me) and was compellingly watchable.Swans with their pass and move fluency,slow- quick- slow tempo, and frustrating(for Stoke) ball retention.Stoke came closest when the grafting Walters seized on a Swans mistake and accurately and powerfully volleyed a loose bouncing ball toward the roof of the net only to see Michel Vorm in the home goal spectacularly parry it in an acrobatic arch and onto the bar and behind for a corner.DDV was a good shot stopper(our previous Dutch Keeper before decamping to Wolves).Signed from Utrecht for a reported 1.5m, the Vorminator is showing us Swans that one of the world's best footballing nations(Holland) does not put ordinary players into their national squad and in my eyes, if Maarten Stekelenburg is the Dutch no 1 to Vorm's no 2 , then he MUST be one hell of a keeper.Because ours is.
1-0 at half time and the second half was no less compelling.

Incidentally,it's very easy to (snidely) denigrate Stoke as a long ball,bruising team with little else about them.I can be as guilty as anyone on that front but that would be doing them an injustice.They are all of those things, but they have a great deal more about them.There
were periods in the second half when we came under sustained pressure from their legitimate attempts to drag themselves back into the game.The closest they came was when Whelan,their industrious midfielder,curled a box-edge free kick around the wall and struck the base of the Swans post.Fortunately for us it bounced clear,although you've got to admire a guy near me who calmly pronounced..."the wall did it's job,see".

And then,for most home fans came the icing on the cake.Danny Graham,who had spent all match selflessly running channels,linking play,defending with heart and head when need be, managed to strip the ball from Jonathan Woodgate some 35yds out.Racing away,with Shawcross and Woodgate snapping at his heels he drew the keeper and calmly slotted it into the corner.Cue mayhem,delirium,happiness.2-0 and at last we could breathe easy.Sinclair had previously forced Begovic to turn a screamer around the post and both Lita and particularly Moore made important contributions in running down the clock and preserving the status quo.The crowd were in fine voice both in supporting the team throughout and in castigating the officials for leniency by not punishing some overly robust challenges.Both Sinclair and Lita were fouled when advancing at goal to howls of derision.

We saw the game out safely and the team were justifiably clapped from the field.Am I proud?You bet I am.I haven't had the chance to highlight ALL of our team-from Joe Allen (sponsors MOM-deserved) to Monk and Williams(giants against GIANTS at CB).Have a look at our teamsheet.As Brendan said- the team played for the City (all of it) and it was a performance that made me feel a great deal of pride in the shirt.My new shirt,as silky as the Swans performance.Going into the International break,the Club will be psychologically boosted by 3 hard won points and a presence in the table in a healthy 10th place.

Early days I know,but in continuing to make the Liberty a hard place for visitors Swansea are beginning to look the part.On the resumption of the program two tricky away fixtures approach at Norwich and Wolves .We will hope to transfer today's form into both fixtures.

Onward and upward.