Swans out to cash-in on United injury woe
SWANSEA City will look to capitalise on Manchester United’s injury problems by claiming a crucial result at Old Trafford tomorrow that could help ensure a visit to the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ remains on their agenda next season.
The Swans got back to winning ways with a first victory in seven against Stoke at the Liberty Stadium.
Next up is a trip to face Jose Mourinho’s injury-ravaged side tomorrow lunchtime, with United having just 14 fit senior players available following their goalless draw against local rivals Manchester City.
The likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Juan Mata, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Marouane Fellaini, Timothy Fosu-Mensah and Marcos Rojo will all miss out against the Welsh club through a mixture of injury and suspension, while Paul Pogba – the world’s most expensive player – is a doubt with a muscle problem.
United are unbeaten in 24 league games under Mourinho and will be no pushovers regardless of what XI Mourinho fields just four days before the Red Devils face Celta Vigo in the first leg of their Europa League semifinal.
But Swansea desperately need the points with time running out to haul themselves clear of the bottom three.
And head coach Paul Clement admits these are the sorts of occasions that serve as a reminder of what the club will miss out on if they don’t get the job done.
“These are the games we want next season and we will give everything to ensure that is the case,” he said.
“It’s a great moment for me to walk my team out at Old Trafford. “It is a packed house every game and it is special to go there. We have to go there with courage, confidence and personality to perform.
“We have to take care of ourselves, we know some of the sides around us will play before we do but that is not in our control.
“The only people we can rely on to get this done are ourselves.
“The win over Stoke was a big moment for us, we had some luck that we were due with their penalty miss and we want to make sure that is a pivotal moment in our season.”
Swansea’s principal relegation rivals Hull take on Southampton at St Mary’s today.
SOMETIMES it’s just one moment. Not one game, not 90 minutes, just one solitary moment that changes everything.
And those moments make heroes of those involved.
Swansea City have them. As they face their first fight against relegation in more than a decade, the moments in that match against Hull have come to mind.
They would have dropped out of the Football League if not for the jinking run of Leon Britton to force a penalty, would have never gone on their run to the Premier League had James Thomas not converted it and added two more way back in May 2003.
But there was another moment that mattered every bit as much to Swansea’s survival that year.
And yet the man involved does not find himself spoken about in quite the same exalted tones.
Marc Richards didn’t kick a ball on that final day against Tigers, rivals of a different kind all these years on; the striker never stepped onto the Vetch Field surface, and as such has never been considered a hero of Hull.
And yet, just a week earlier, it could have been all so different if not for his moment.
Richards had not long turned 20 when the call came in from South Wales. With his contract due to expire at then Premier League Blackburn, and a long list of strikers including Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole clogging the path to Graeme Souness’ first team, the England Under-20 striker could not afford to be picky, regardless of the plight of the club enquiring about him.
“I needed to play games and my only option was to go out on loan,” recalls Richards, now 34. “I’d already been out on loan at a few places the previous season – places like Crewe, Oldham and Halifax – and then I was called in and told Swansea wanted me. I didn’t know where they were or anything much about the place. I had to look up where they were in the league.”
The grim reality was that the Swans, despite Brian Flynn’s best efforts having been appointed two months earlier, were 92nd out of 92 in the Football League.
Richards recalls how Thomas, a former Blackburn player himself, was also soon on the phone with a sales pitch about the club’s history, its fan base and how Flynn was looking towards fresh, young blood to turn Vetch Field fortunes around.
Part of his wages were being paid for by fans, the club’s Supporters Trust having passed buckets and asked for donations to “Let’s Stop Moaning and Get a Loan In”. Even goalkeeper Roger Freestone had contributed as close to £30,000 was raised for Flynn’s fighting fund.
Alan Tate signed on loan from Manchester United the same November 2002 day as Richards confirmed he would come. Britton would arrive from West Ham a few weeks later.
“The club put us up in the same block of apartments down the Marina and it was a great experience for us, not just living like that, being in the real world, but having that sense of it meaning something,” says the Wolverhampton-born man.
“It was a world away from reserve and youth team football. Every game, every chance to turn the corner meant so much to so many people and we were in the middle of it.”
There was an exact moment when the penny dropped. His decision to join may have been born from almost selfish reasons, to gain experience and a potential move, but all that quickly changed.
“A lot of people talk about what it feels like to score, and I’d managed to get my first goals the year before,” says Richards. “But I remember scoring against Shrewsbury at the Vetch in my second game and running towards the North Bank. The sense I got in that moment, seeing what it meant to them and the passion there was, I got it.”
In the dressing room, there wasn’t a player whose commitment to the club – in contract terms at least – lasted beyond the end of that season. Yet, even with the number of potentially disconnected loan players, there was never a doubt of the togetherness that was needed in such a desperate fight.
“We were lucky because we had real characters, lads like Roger Freestone who I will never forget,” Richards says. “And Roberto Martinez was a huge influence. When he came in, he took me, Britts and Tatey under our wing. I think he could see the potential we had, not just for the future but for that season. He was a real leader and made sure we pulled together because it was grim at times. “
As Swansea lost to rivals Exeter on Easter Monday, leaving Flynn’s men just one point clear of the Grecians and relegation, the North Bank died a little. Swansea had to win at Rochdale in the season’s penultimate game if they were to stand any chance.
It was Richards’ moment. He had been dropped for the trip to Spotland and told just a few weeks earlier that he would be released by Blackburn. When the hosts cancelled out Kevin Nugent’s opener just before half-time, Swansea were staring into the abyss.
Richards was told to warm up and replace the man who had been on the phone to him about joining five months earlier. There was 67 minutes on the clock.
“I think I’d only been on a minute,” remembers Richards. “Roberto played a diagonal ball and the ball came across my right shoulder. I remember just trying to get my left foot onto it and at least try and hit the target.
“There was no power in it and I think it trickled over the line. But it was a massive goal for us.”
It meant Swansea could go home knowing a win over Hull would be enough. This time it was Thomas’
moment, Richards kept in reserve and only sampling the electric, emotional atmosphere of the crumbling sea-side stadium from the dugout. He did not figure, isn’t recalled when the heroes of Hull are mentioned, but the fact was Swansea would have gone down had it not been for Richards at Rochdale.
Exeter’s win on that final day proved irrelevant, yet would have been infamous had Swansea not won that previous week.
While Martinez, Tate and Britton re-signed and embedded their Swansea status as the club rose, Richards left.
“I was offered a contract but I also had the option of going to Northampton,” he says. “In the end it came down to location: Swansea was three hours from home and Northampton was about an hour’s drive so that swung it.
“Obviously, no-one could have foreseen what Swansea would do and I didn’t – and still don’t have any regrets; I had some success with Northampton, we were involved in the play-offs a few times, and I don’t think you can live your life with ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’.”
Even still, it doesn’t bear thinking about the what ifs regarding Richards and Rochdale, the moment that happened 14 years ago this week.
Richards has gone on to play more than 500 games since, scoring 174 career goals (although you suspect 173 of them not quite as significant to one club at least). They have come over 15 years at a time where the average footballer’s career is half that.
There are discussions and hopes about a further year at the League One Cobblers, where he returned three years ago after spells with Barnsley, Port Vale and Chesterfield. From that survival Swansea side, only he and Britton are still playing.
“I saw that he played again last week and it brought a smile to my face,” says Richards of Britton, the midfielder who has gone from rookie hero to filling the Martinez role, even down to arranging the team-bonding meals that the Spaniard had insisted on during that Great Escape.
“We still keep in touch on social media and I’ve bumped into him once or twice over the years, and obviously I keep track of how Swansea are doing because of the affinity I have after my time there.
“He knows what it takes, what it means, and that you need big characters to come through and pull you together when you’re go through difficulties.”
And you also need those moments, ones that Swansea will be hoping for even in tomorrow’s trip to Manchester United.
Moments like Richards’, the forgotten hero of Hull.