Ashley Williams headed goal gives the Swans their first league victory of the season at Coventry
A FIRST league win in the Paulo Sousa era, the first three pressure-relieving Championship points of 2009-10 and Swansea City's first victory at Coventry in 60 years. What better time for a right old knees-up?
While two goals in four league games might not be a common source of celebration, there was no mistaking Swansea's joy as Ashley Williams plundered the points with a delicious strike any forward would have been proud to call his own.
In one 69th-minute swing of the left boot, centre-back Williams released the pressure valve which had been tightening on Sousa and his men in the formative weeks of the season.
The same Williams who had bulleted home a header at Leicester on the opening day – and who now stands tall as Swansea’s only goalscorer in the Championship.
Cue a Cossack-style celebration dance born from Swansea’s pre-season trip to Portugal, so what price Williams managing a three-card trick on World Cup duty for Wales against Russia next month?
“That’s a little joke amongst the boys,” said Williams, explaining the well-rehearsed choreography. “When we were away we were messing about doing that dance – and we were supposed to do it when we scored.
“I totally forgot about it at Leicester, but I remembered today. The only problem was that my knees were hurting after it!”
If the thought of turning 25 yesterday was troubling Williams – “I’m a bit depressed because I need to start growing up a little bit” – there was plenty to smile about as Swansea built on small midweek steps taken against Reading.
Build from the back is the mantra of any coach worth his salt and two clean sheets has gone a long way to moving in the right direction.
Sousa’s rudimentary English almost certainly does not extend to the phrase “being sent to Coventry”, so he would have missed the irony had Swansea stumbled again in a city where they last triumphed in 1949.
Yet Sousa was very much not alone after Williams’ goal yanked them out of the relegation zone and towards mid-table, and neither were his players in showing a solidarity which would have embarrassed the most zealous of trade unions.
Swansea’s capacity for work was best portrayed by Nathan Dyer, a pocket bundle of energy and desire who patrolled the flanks tirelessly and still had time to produce a creative spark.
With an iron defence restricting Coventry to half-chances after Sammy Clingan’s dreadful 14th-minute penalty miss, the odds were high that Dyer would be heavily involved should there be a winner.
And so it proved when the Sky Blues made a horlicks of clearing Mark Gower’s cross and Dyer’s spectacular overhead kick tested the firmness of the Coventry crossbar before falling to the waiting Williams.
“I just concentrated on hitting the target as it bounced down,” said Williams, who hails from nearby Tamworth and was able to count on plenty of support from family and friends in the crowd.
“I’d like to say I aimed for the bottom corner, but I just tried to keep it on target. That’s two goals already – the same as last year – and scoring more was one of the things I wanted to work on at the start of the season.
“I said I wanted five goals last year and I didn’t get there and, if I’m honest, I don’t think me and Monks (Garry Monk) contributed enough with the amount of games we played.
“But Monks scored the other day in the Carling Cup and there’s no reason we can’t get 10 between us.
“We’ve worked very hard on set-pieces from the very first day in pre-season and you can see we’re more dangerous from them.
“But the clean sheet still gives me more pleasure than the goal because I like to shut the strikers out, especially two top strikers like that.”
Leon Best and Clinton Morrison had fired Coventry to the top of the embryonic Championship table, but, save for a couple of headers which ended up in Dorus de Vries’ safe grasp and on the roof of the net, they didn’t get a sniff here.
Backed up by de Vries’ authority, Monk and Williams adopted a ruthless “thou shalt not pass” attitude while Alan Tate – refreshed from signing a new Swans deal – and Angel Rangel kept Coventry crosses down to a minimum.
In front of them, there was a tidiness about Swansea’s play with Leon Britton and Andrea Orlandi dovetailing to good effect and coaxing young Chad Bond through his first league outing.
There are no problems in this department with long-term absentee Ferrie Bodde, Darren Pratley and Joe Allen working their way back to full fitness.
All three are ready to resume soon after next month’s international break and Swansea will be immeasurably stronger for their return.
The only glaring issue remains up front where a more physical presence might be required in addition to Stephen Dobbie’s predatory fox-in-the-box skills.
Sousa hopes the answer might lie in former Austrian young footballer of the year Besian Idrizaj, who has agreed a two-year deal, though the 21-year-old has it to do after suffering health problems and losing his way since joining Liverpool as a teenager.
Denied the lead when summer signing Clingan fired wide from 12 yards after Orlandi was adjudged to have handled Aron Gunnarsson’s long throw, Coventry constantly ran down cul de sacs to an extent that Swansea nails were in no danger of being reduced to the quick.