Swansea v Port Vale

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There are days in football when you get your just rewards but in reality today for Swansea City was not fully one of those. The 3-0 scoreline is, of course, comprehensive enough but it was one of those days where had the score doubled, or maybe even more, the visitors could have had little complaint.

Such was Swansea's dominance that they could afford the luxury of hauling Leon Britton and Lee Trundle off early enough in the second half to protect them for sterner tests to come. And with results going against them elsewhere those tests will surely need to yield three points each if the Swans are to extend their season beyond 5th May.

After a respectable but disappointing blank at Bristol City on the weekend, today was always about returning to winning ways and that was never really in doubt against a side who never fully competed in the game and were outclassed in just about every department. It really was that much between the two sides.

There was a starting debut for Darryl Duffy and both Andy Robinson and Izzy Irikepen missed out from the side that took on Bristol at the weekend - Kevin Austin and Tom Williams taking those two places in the side with Butler returning to the bench after starting at the weekend.

Big Willy

R Duffy Big Den Big Kev Imelda

Britts Craney KOL Williams

LT10 D Duffy

Subs: Oakes, Abbott, Watt, Amankwaah, Butler

Right from the outset the tone for the first half was set with Leon Britton finding acres of space on the right hand side of midfield and combining brilliantly with Duffy to send a couple of early crosses into the box. On the opposite flank Painter and Williams were not quite as effective but equally as dangerous as both LT10 and Duffy were looking to create space up front.

We had already come close a couple of times when Trundle's right foot put us into the lead. A corner on the right was only partially cleared and the ball back into the box fell nicely for Trundle on the 12 yard marker and he made no mistake in drilling home for his 17th goal of the season. 1-0 within twenty minutes and any nerves that there were around the Liberty Stadium soon disappeared.

1-0 became 2-0 just a few minutes later when Darryl Duffy opened his Swans account with a good strike from inside the area that went in off the post with the keeper beaten all ends up. The three points were surely in the bag and there was more than an hour to play. And although the scoreline remained 2-0 by the time the interval came around it was somewhat of a mystery as to why as the Swans passed the ball about nicely, creating space, working for each other and showing an aptitude for the game that sadly has been missing too often this season.

A slow start to the second half soon disappeared as Britton broke brilliantly from halfway before sliding in Duffy who rounded the keeper and slotted home from 10 yards out to make it 3-0 on 56 minutes. Swansea were on fire on one of the warmest days of the year so far. That was Britt's swansong of the game and you could almost hear the full back breath a sigh of relief as Leon was replaced by Tom Butler before the game was any older.

Trundle followed soon after, handing the armband to KOL, as he became the second Swansea player to leave to a standing ovation and was replaced by Pawel Abbott. Port Vale were well beaten by this time and Abbott could have helped himself to a couple of goals but it wasn't to be and as one Port Vale full back found his afternoon easier - Rhys Weston will be having nightmares this evening about the second half performance of Tom Williams who ran him ragged for much of the last 30 minutes or more.

Williams set up Duffy for a perfect hat trick chance but he fired over after arriving at pace to meet the ball and despite a couple more near misses we had to be content with a three goal margin of victory which now leaves us four points from the play off zone.

With four games remaining that gap won't be easy to close but if we can produce four like today then we should be looking at fixtures towards the middle of May but for now, let's bask in this one and look forward to the next one - Bournemouth on Saturday.

Man of the match will always be Duffy because of his two goals but we performed to a man today and that must be the most pleasing aspect of all once you look deeper than the result.

Nice one Swans

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