ESPN Soccernet - Correspondents - Swansea City
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Swansea City
Posted by Max Hicks on 08/23/2011

For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding Swansea's first ever home Premier League fixture, the game itself was a tentative slow burner; the latter part of the second half was somewhat more exciting and featured the game's biggest moment, as new Swans keeper Michel Vorm continued to amaze by pulling out a penalty save to salvage a point, living up to his "penalty killer" reputation in the process. With the goalkeeping as solid as it's ever been, all question marks are now pointed sharply towards the goal-scoring department.

Brendan Rodgers concentrated much of his pre-season transfer market attention to bolstering the Swans attack. In came Leroy Lita, Wayne Routledge and most notably Danny Graham. Although we haven't seen too much of Lita yet, Routledge has been a treat. Starting the game against Wigan in place of Stephen Dobbie, who had struggled in the season opener at the Etihad, Routledge's intelligent play created two of the Swans best chances, the man himself skewing the Swans best clear shot of the game inches wide.

Meanwhile, the world and Danny Graham await the geordies first competitive goal for Swansea. He came close in this one but couldn't get enough leg behind a chance early on. Swans fans have started to wonder whether Rodgers ought to bring in more help up front (those ludicrous Trezeguet rumours notwithstanding); I'd say no. Two games in, Graham looks a little out of sync with his teammates, but only by a whisker. He is a square peg sitting on a square hole, just ever so slightly misaligned. Once he clunks into place, the goals will flow, though it's not all on Graham - I think the entire team, not to mention every Swans fan - will breathe that much easier once someone (anyone) knocks one in (as is often the way of such things, I fancy the Swans first goal to come not from the attack, but from somewhere else in the team - a set-piece header from Ash Williams, say, or a rare edge of the box drive from Rangel).

The next team up is Sunderland, who will be without full back Phil Bardsley following his dismissal in the Tyne and Wear derby. That ought to open up some space for Scott Sinclair, which in turn ought to create better scoring chances for the Swans. Let's hope we see that first Premier League goal next week.

Positives (versus Wigan) : Michel Vorm. Wayne Routledge's creativity. Not being beaten by Martinez and Co. Max Boyce. Blessed woodwork.

Negatives : Not beating Martinez and Co. Forgetting to mark Victor Moses. Not scoring.


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