11/08/2008 - Charlton 2 Swans 0
SWANSEA City’s early-season stats make familiar reading for Roberto Martinez — played one, outplayed one, lost one.
For Oldham Athletic on the opening day of the last campaign read Charlton Athletic this. Okay, so Saturday’s debut Championship defeat at The Valley was no carbon copy of that extraordinary reverse at Boundary Park. Back then Swansea contrived to lose 2-1 on a day when they might have run up a cricket score.
There was never any danger of Martinez’s men racking up a stack of goals in Charlton’s backyard, but once more in early August the better side were also the beaten side.
“I can see quite a few similarities with what happened at Oldham last year,” the Swansea manager said.
“When we played there we got a lot of positives from the performance but the wrong result.
“Oldham showed a great maturity and that they were very effective in terms of how to win football games. And here at Charlton the same thing has happened again. There are lots of positives we can take but Charlton were very mature and they looked like a side who know how to win football games.”
Alan Pardew’s admission that his midfield had been embarrassed in spells by last season’s League One champions was his way of saying that Swansea had been the more impressive in possession.
Despite conceding one of the fastest goals of the season — just as they had done at Oldham 12 months ago — Swansea recovered admirably enough to give the Addicks the runaround in patches.
The attractive way is the only way given the squad Martinez has built, and there were reminders of the fine football that won Swansea so many friends en route to the title last term.
“We controlled the tempo, we imposed ourselves at a very difficult ground and we created 14 chances,” Martinez added. “I don’t like to say it very often, but in August sometimes the performance is more important than the result and that was the case for us here.
“Mentally my players are disappointed in the dressing room because we have a winning mentality. It’s great to see the players hurting, but they can put things right in the next game.
“And I think overall our fans will be happy with our performance because they could see certain things we tried to do.”
The mood among Swansea’s fans appeared about as upbeat as it could have been in the face of a 2-0 defeat, the 3,300-strong contingent saluting their team even after Andy Gray’s killer second goal arrived four minutes from time.
But encouraged as they were, the travelling support will have been troubled by familiar concerns on the road back to Wales.
Set-pieces, as was illustrated perfectly this weekend, continue to trouble Martinez’s team.
Just over a week ago, West Brom boss Tony Mowbray hailed Swansea’s style after the Baggies’ pre-season visit to the Liberty Stadium. But the man who guided free-flowing Albion to last season’s Championship title stressed that success in the second tier is not all about the pretty stuff.
You have to be able to defend dead balls, Mowbray pointed out, and you have to be strong in both penalty boxes.
If they did not get message then, Swansea ought to have done now.
Lesson one arrived after 110 seconds on Saturday, when Garry Monk lost Mark Hudson — thanks in part to a block, Swansea claimed — at a Jonjo Shelvey corner and the Charlton debutant planted a header beyond Dorus de Vries.
The hosts threatened just once more in the next 84 minutes — when another Shelvey corner was only flicked on by Ashley Williams. Lloyd Sam volleyed acrobatically and de Vries made a sprawling save.
But the big Dutchman could do nothing at the end when Gray got between Williams and Matty Collins to nod home Grant Basey’s left-wing free-kick at the near post.
“The two goals we conceded were very, very soft,” Martinez accepted. “It doesn’t matter what level you play at, that kind of defending isn’t good enough. We wouldn’t have won the title last year if we’d defended like that and we have to address set-pieces.”
Apparently Swansea, who were exposed by the dead ball in pre-season, had done extra work on how to cope on the eve of the new campaign. Evidently, more is required.
“We will never be a strong side on set-pieces because we haven’t got the players for that,” Martinez added. “But we try to win football games using different strengths. We cannot keep conceding goals like that, but sorting that out is the easiest thing in football because it’s about concentrating and defending well.
“The hardest thing is keeping the ball and creating chances, so I am not concerned.”
Swansea did have some set-piece menace of their own against Charlton – though only through direct free-kicks. Ferrie Bodde and Jordi Gomez both saw efforts spilled by home keeper Nicky Weaver, who was fortunate to see each rebound hacked away by a red shirt.
Weaver also pawed away a trademark Tom Butler effort late on in a first half where a string of defensive blocks denied Swansea.
Martinez’s men got closer after the break — Guillem Bauza smashed a shot just wide, Darren Pratley had the ball in the net but was offside and substitute Jason Scotland fired too close to Weaver.
By then Swansea had 10 men, Monk having walked for two bookings in two minutes for fouls on Luke Varney and Matt Holland.
“It wasn’t a red,” said Martinez. “The second yellow card was a bad decision because he got the ball first, but saying that I don’t think it was a key factor in the game.”
Pardew disagreed, declaring: “He’d been booked and he was stretching, therefore it was a definite sending off.”
Red card or not, what wasn’t in dispute was that Swansea had started their first second-tier campaign in 24 years with a fair degree of promise. Now to get some points on the board.