Northampton 1 Swansea 0

Leon Britton will be keen to forget Northampton Town away on October 27, 2006, scene of his first red card in professional football.He is not the only one.This was one of those games they can ignore when it comes to compiling Swansea City's end-of-season highlights package in around seven months' time. This was one of those days when 650 Swansea fans must have wished they had not bothered making the trek to Northamptonshire. They might have had more fun doing a spot of early Christmas shopping, or splashing their cash on having a tooth removed at the dentist. Yet strangely, this was by no means a dreadful Swansea performance akin to the no-show at Gillingham or the second-half surrender at Nottingham Forest last month. For the first half hour, Kenny Jackett's men looked good for a fourth straight victory. And even when they failed to keep up the pressure later in the piece, they were worthy of at least a draw. For all Swansea's early dominance, Jackett would have been relatively happy with a share of the spoils. But as so often in the last 12 months, a manager who made a playing career out of solid, organised defending was left disappointed by his team's failure to stay solid and organised at the set-piece. It was not even a corner or free-kick that proved Swansea's undoing this time. In what was perhaps a new low for them, Jackett's men succumbed to a long throw. Granted, David Hunt's extraordinary projectile was almost as good as a corner. But to allow a central defender to meet the ball six yards from goal without anyone else getting a touch? ''That's poor,'' Jackett conceded. Luke Chambers was the man to benefit from Swansea's latest dead-ball disaster, the 21-year-old steering home his maiden senior goal. Home celebrations were long and loud. The away supporters who had seen it all before behind the goal can only hope the inquest in the visitors' dressing room dragged on too. ''These set-pieces are costing us points,'' moaned Jackett, whose side drop to sixth in League One. ''It's not a good enough to allow a centre-half to get in there and score direct from a long throw. ''It's frustrating because we should be the ones winning this kind of game 1-0 from a set-piece, not losing them. ''To be honest, these set-pieces are a concern for me at the moment because they decide matches.'' Please, change the record. No team is ever going to go through a season without being exposed at the set-piece, but Swansea are shown up far more regularly than they inflict dead-ball damage at the other end. Jackett has built a squad of giants who should be more adept in both penalty areas, but just now they are experiencing the same old problems almost every week. Look at the four goals conceded by Swansea in the last fortnight. Of the two at Chesterfield, one was a header from a corner. Walsall's late JP Trophy equaliser was from another flag-kick, and now Northampton have triumphed because a bloke called Chambers was given far too much room at a throw. ''Our best spell was the first half, when we got some passing and football going and we created some clear-cut chances,'' Jackett went on. ''But the game almost petered out in the second half. It seemed to stop all the time and there wasn't a lot of flow. ''From Northampton's point of view, that's maybe what they wanted and fair play to them, they've taken all three points. ''Particularly in the bottom two divisions, games go like that - they are whipped up, they are bitty and they are fractious. ''When games like that come along, we have to make sure we're the ones who come out on top. ''It was there for us - it wasn't as if Northampton were all over us or that they necessarily deserved to win. ''It's one of those smash-and-grab games where you have to make sure you are first to the ball in both boxes.'' Once more, then, Swansea's players can expect some pretty basic stuff on the training ground this week. The fact that Northampton had not won in their eight previous home fixtures this season must still have been gnawing away at Jackett and company when they returned to work today. Also grating would have been this weekend's chance count. After Willy Gueret's splendid early save denied Scott McGleish, Swansea carried by far the greater threat. Rory Fallon's classy chest control and volley forced a great stop from Mark Bunn. Northampton's young keeper was at it again from the resulting corner, pushing Andy Robinson's hooked effort onto the bar. Lee Trundle, who had earlier sliced wide, was next to see a goalbound shot beaten away before Bunn completed what was arguably a man-of-the-match display with a point-blank stop to deny Britton five minutes from time. Britton's next contribution was a clumsy challenge on Jason Crowe which earned him a second booking of the day and sparked a melee. When all the fuss had died down, referee Phil Crossley took his card-count for the day to 10 after what had not been a particularly dirty contest. His performance, unlike Swansea's, was truly awful. Yet Jackett's men could not blame Crossley for their sixth league defeat of the campaign. After all, no referee is ever going to go through a game without awarding a set-piece.

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