Forest 1 Swansea 1 – Swans held at Forest

By: Tim | March 9th, 2009

McSheffrey in action against the Swans Just over a week ago, if someone had said to me “you’re going to get seven points out of nine against Reading, Preston and Swansea”, I probably would have wheeled out the catchphrase that Andy Millman loathed so much in Extras – “are you having a laugh?”. The fact that we probably should have got all nine, given the performance against Swansea on Saturday, makes it all the more unbelievable.

Confidence has clearly been restored to the side after beating the Lilywhites midweek though – we started strongly against Swansea and could have gone 1 nil up early on after Earnie missed from close range. I’ve got a lot of time for the Jacks, they’re comfortable in possession and like to stroke the ball around, their first chance came from the creative Joe Allen who fired wide from 30 yards out. The first half was mostly about us, though, with Osbourne clipping the bar (following a neat one two with the Moose) and debutant loanee McSheffrey firing wide after some good work by Lynch.

We started the second half much the same, Cohen had an early shot saved by De Vries, and we continued to hold the Swans back. Sadly, against the run of play, the good work looked to have been in vain when some sloppy defending led to an unmarked Bauza chipping Smudge, who came off his line, to find the similarly unmarked Jason Scotland. His goal was a simple tap-in, it was doubly disappointing because Wilson had kept the Swans’s top scorer in his pocket up until that point, and we’d restricted them to counter attacks too.

To our credit we didn’t let it get the better of us. Shortly after coming on in place of McSheffrey, McGugan had a tame crack at goal saved when he probably should have played Earnie in. He made amends by scoring the equaliser, though, after a great run and cross by Lynch, Lewis kept his cool to head home from six yards out. There were a couple of chances either way after that, notably for Earnie and Jordi Gomez, but neither side could break the other down.

I’ve still got a lot of respect for the way Swansea play, and Roberto Martinez is clearly an astute manager, but I was slightly underwhelmed by their performance. We should have won this really, having players like McSheffrey, Osbourne and Moussi at full fitness may have made the difference. Still, every point is valuable and it’s pleasing to see that Wilson has regained some confidence – Lynch has started to turn in some fine performances too. Watch the highlights here.

The acid test will be against Watford at Vicarage Road tomorrow night, in the first of four remaining relegation six pointers. Big Wes will return to the side, and Nathan Tyson is a possibility too, although Paul Anderson has reportedly got an ankle injury, so he may miss out. Given the other results in the league it’s vital that we take some points from this game – the bottom half of the Championship is packed tighter than a cling film codpiece, so a convincing string of wins, a la Doncaster, could see us sitting fairly comfortably come May.

One thing to worry about is the amount of games in hand sides like Barnsley and Watford have (3 and 2 respectively), and maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but it’s not unthinkable that we could be safe before May, given our results this past week and the topsy-turvy nature of the Championship. Put it one way, if we turn in performances like this every week, but take our chances instead, we should have no problem staying up.