Scunthorpe United v Swansea

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Football League One

Scunthorpe United :
Murphy, Mulligan, Crosby, Foster, Ridley, Taylor, Hinds, Baraclough (Ferretti 88), Sparrow, Keogh, Sharp
Subs not used:
Byrne, MacKenzie, Williams, Lillis.

Swansea :
Gueret, Amankwaah, Iriekpen, Monk (Austin 29), Williams, Robinson, Pratley, Tate (sent off 16), McLeod (Butler 67), Fallon, Knight (Trundle 45)
Subs not used:
Oakes, Akinfenwa.

SULSESC REPORT

by Chris Pettitt at Glanford Park

MY girlfriend said have a nice time at the footy. I don’t think she quite realises what watching Scunthorpe is about, it’s like saying having a nice time at the dentist!

Has there been an off season? Has anything changed? Seems like only yesterday that we limped towards safety. We still can’t play against 10 men and we still try the same old tactics.

Swansea must be the biggest team in the division, it was like watching the land of the giants, so what were our early tactics? The long high ball.

When we did play along the ground, we looked dangerous, Taylor being brought down early twice, first by Pratley which drew a yellow, the second a rather dangerous two footed challenge that saw Tate given a straight red.

I know we all thought ‘that’s it, a 1-0 home defeat’ with the winning goal probably scored by McLeod (smallest man on the pitch) with a header.

As usual, we failed to make the man advantage tell and it was no surprise when, in injury time at the end of the half, Swansea took a 1-0 lead as Robinson fired in from 18 yards at the near post.

The Iron came out early at the beginning of the second-half for what looked like another warm-up. We all thought that whilst Lawsy was giving his half-time team talk whilst having a pee, the team sneaked out, leaving him giving his tactics talk to the urinal!

The second-half started brightly with again Taylor and Keogh causing havoc. Taylor’s run into the box after 49 minutes drew a rather clumsy challenge which resulted in a Crosby penalty – 1-1 and it was all us, playing with confidence, passing the ball reasonably well and looking like we were finally putting our ‘can’t play against 10 men’ curse behind us.

Sharp made it 2-1 when he scored through Gueret’s legs from a tight angle and that was it, apart from a Taylor shot that flashed passed the far post and a couple of weak efforts from Sparrow. Oh, and the obligatory ‘give the ball away, lose concentration and concede an equaliser’!