The Swans drew their last pre-season match this evening at the Liberty being held 0-0 by a Deportivo La Coruna side who at times seemed to take the game far too seriously.
The result means that the Swans pre-season campaign has seen them come through unbeaten with four draws and a win in the five games and it is time now to focus on the real challenges ahead starting with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge next weekend.
It is always interesting to watch the line up in the final pre-season friendly as it gives you the clearest indication yet as to the thinking of the manager as to who is likely to feature when the league action starts.
I have to say that I don’t think the starting line up will vary that much between today and next week with the only real possible change being Gylfi into the starting line up but that would be unfair on Jonjo Shelvey who I thought was excellent in the 45 minutes he played today.
I think the half time substitutions will tell you the questions that are going through the mind of our manager with Gylfi, Jefferson and Franck Tabanou coming on in place of Shelvey, Routledge and Taylor. Whether we should read into the fact that those are the three places up for grabs next week remains to be seen but if that is the case then I think we could see a start for Montero and Tabanou but lets see.
The Swans had the better of the first half with Fabianski being very much a spectator for the most with the right hand side of the pitch being by far our most dangerous outlet. Gomis and Ayew both had good chances that were saved by the keeper whilst — as mentioned before — the excellent Shelvey was constantly causing problems in the Deportivo defence.
The second half was far more even although it took more than an hour for the visitors to have their first real attempt at goal. Their first two attempts went wide but the entertainment factor of the game went up a notch when we seemed to get away with a handball by Tabanou which sparked a melee which saw five players booked — four of them from the visiting team. One of them was their keeper who did little to endear himself to the Liberty crowd by running the length of the pitch to get involved.
That incident saw the game open up much more and both teams went in search of a winner but neither keeper was called upon to make a save of note as the game headed towards stalemate.
So that was our pre-season and now it is time for us to spend the last week putting the finishing touches towards whatever is needed for the new season — plenty of positives for me from today’s game notably the performance of our midfield but again we need to get sharper in front of goal but happy enough with the way that the game went.
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