SWANSEA KEEP IT MEAN AND STAY KEEN IN THE TOP THREE
SWANSEA City stretched their unbeaten home record in the Championship to seven matches as they defeated Barnsley at the Liberty Stadium. Here are the key talking points to emerge from the game.
THE ASTONISHING CONTEXT OF SWANSEA’S DEFENSIVE RECORD
THE efforts of Ben Cabango, Ryan Bennett and Marc Guehi went a long way to ensuring Freddie Woodman kept his 11th clean sheet of the campaign against Barnsley.
With 20 games gone this season, Swansea have, remarkably, conceded just 12 times in the league.
Watford and Middlesbrough have the next best defensive record having let in 15 goals this season, but it’s fair to say Swansea are proving to be formidable at the back.
Even when Barnsley pressed after going 1-0 behind to Jamal Lowe’s early strike, Swansea looked comfortable.
They restricted the Tykes to just one shot on target in the whole match, and even that was comfortably dealt with by Woodman as Alex Mowatt tested the Newcastle United loanee from a free-kick.
And the current crop’s record compared to that from years gone by bodes remarkably well for Steve Cooper’s troops.
Swansea are currently conceding goals at a rate of 0.6 per game, which is comfortably the best return in the second tier.
For context, last season’s champions Leeds United ended the 2019-20 campaign with the meanest defence having conceded just 35 times in their 46 regular season matches, which works out at a rate of 0.76 goals conceded per game.
Preston take number one spot for the fewest goals conceded in a Championship regular season since the Football League was restructured in 2004.
They let in just 30 goals during the 2005-06 season, which works out at an average of 0.65 goals per game, a tally that Swansea are currently on course to beat.
In the 16 Championship seasons that have gone by since the restructure of the English football pyramid, 13 of the 19 teams who ended the regular campaign with the best defensive record gained automatic promotion (the record was shared by two clubs in three campaigns).
Of the other six, four finished in the play-off places, while Middlesbrough (2018-19) and Stoke City (2006-07) were the only two to miss out on the top six.
Swansea’s defence has rightly earned plenty of praise lately. And the reality is that their efforts at the back are on course to be recordbreaking.
BARNSLEY BOSS CAUGHT BY SURPRISE
THE appalling Liberty Stadium pitch ensured it was far from a pretty spectacle on Saturday.
But, to put it simply, Swansea adapted to the conditions far better than the Tykes did.
Barnsley failed to cause any real problems when they went direct, and the Swans were actually the ones who looked like adding to their goal tally as the game wore on.
And their manager Valerien Ismael admitted he was taken by surprise with Swansea’s more direct approach, although he conceded the hosts were deserved winners.
“I was surprised that Swansea are normally a possession-based team but played completely different. They played a completely different game,” said the Frenchman.
“The ball was more in the air, but I think in the first half we were there near them. At half-time, I told the guys they had to change to take the fight to Swansea.
“We had to accept the awful pitch and we had to go back to basics. I think there was a lot of fatigue, the intensity was not there, we took a lot of wrong decisions and we played too early or too late.
“That’s why I think we have to take into account the situation surrounding the game for my team. We performed very well in the last game and that’s why I have to accept in such a schedule that sometimes such a performance can happen.
“We need to recover now, and we have enough time to get fresh before the next game so we can prepare better. We go again.
“We deserved to lose, and we didn’t do enough tonight.”
COOPER RESPONDS TO SQUAD QUESTIONS
COOPER made just two changes from the side that started against Derby for the visit of Barnsley, and one of those was enforced as Kyle Naughton missed out through injury.
Cabango shone in the absence of Naughton, while Yan Dhanda impressed in the No.10 role after replacing Korey Smith in the starting XI.
However, some fans struggled to understand why Cooper made no substitutions late on, particularly given the brutal nature of the schedule of late.
The Swans do, of course, have a full week until their trip to Queens Park Rangers, which is something of a rarity given that they have played a fixture in midweek for the last four weeks running.
But even so, many members of the Jack Army thought changes could have been made after Swansea had gone 2-0 up in a bid to keep players fresh while also giving fringe stars the chance to impress.
Head coach Cooper offered an explanation in his post-match press conference.
“Kyle has got a niggle, so he wasn’t available today. Neither was Jordon Garrick, they picked up something from the game on Wednesday,” he said.
“Benny’s [Cabango] been brilliant for us. I know he didn’t play in the last two games, but he wasn’t dropped. He just needed a bit of a rest.
“Korey didn’t play today because he’s played seven games on the spin.
“We’ve just tried to utilise the squad as much as we can and I did want to make some substitutions today to keep people involved and engaged, but I just wanted to get the game done, truth be told, and I felt we were comfortable with it.”
LOWE IN THE LIMELIGHT
LOWE netted his fifth goal of the campaign to put Swansea ahead inside two minutes.
And the 26-year-old’s efforts ensured Barnsley’s defence endured a tough afternoon in South Wales.
“He and Andre were excellent, in different ways,” said Cooper.
“Jamal got his goal early on, started the game well.
“He really put their centre-backs under pressure today. The more he can do that for us, the better team we’re going to be, because he’s excellent at it.
“I’m really happy with everyone’s contribution today, in attacking and defending.”
Having spurned numerous opportunities earlier on in the campaign, Lowe has now netted three goals in his last three appearances for Swansea.
It means he’s now just one behind his tally of six goals for the entirety of the 2019-20 campaign with Wigan.
Lowe’s efforts have played a major part in easing the burden on top scorer Andre Ayew who has not bulged the net in his last four appearances. Long may it continue.