Another ROUT For Swansea City In Europa League

Swansea City have again put themselves into a fantastic position to qualify through to the next stage of the Europa League after a thumping 5-1 home win against Romanian outfit Petrolul Ploiesti.

Wayne Routledge was the star of the first half, scoring a brace to give the Swans an excellent 3-0 lead at the break. Michu scored in the middle of Routledge’s brace, as the home side netted three times in just 9 minutes in front of 12,500 fans at the Liberty Stadium.

Despite the busy schedule, Michael Laudrup didn’t make anything near the 7 changes he made the last time his side played in the European competition. Neil Taylor replaced Ben Davies at left back, while Canas was rested in midfield, allowing Michu to fall back as Bony started up front.

Nathan Dyer missed the game due to a hamstring injury and Hernandez started his first game of the season.

Swansea City struggled somewhat to get into their usual flowing passing game as the visitors hoped to keep things tight early on. Petrolul looked to offer more of a challenge than Malmo in the opening exchanges, but it soon proved otherwise.

You wondered if the visitors were playing with full backs, as they often went missing as the hosts attacked down the flanks with relative ease.

Michu cleverly dummied Shelvey’s free-kick, and Routledge was unmarked to set up a curling shot on goal through a crowd of players. It was heading straight to the goalkeeper but fortunately for the Swans it was deflected past him and into the net.

Jonjo Shelvey was again spraying some impressive passes out to the wide areas – just like he did against Malmo as he controlled a lot of Swansea’s creative attacking football. He helped to create the second. He curled in a cross from the left side, a tricky one to defend at the far post, Hernandez slid in and the goalkeeper parried his effort to Michu who poked the ball home.

The Swans were on a roll now and they made it 3, just 9 minutes after opening the scoring. It was Wayne Routledge again after good work from his fellow winger Hernandez. The Spaniard worked the ball down the right, and when it looked like he was going to pull a low cross back for Bony, who was surrounded by defenders, Routledge was left completely free at the far post. Thankfully, Hernandez spotted him, lifted a high cross to the far post and Routledge headed in with another 20 minutes of the half to play.

The winger had a chance to net a hatrick before the break as he was put through on goal, but instead of proceeding forward on goal, he decided to shoot first time and blazed an effort over the bar.

If you thought Swansea’s defence was poor against United, it was world class compared to that of Petrolul. You often wondered if their full backs had gone AWOL, they were rarely to be seen, they were chasing on the back foot too often and left far too much space in the box for the Swans to easily exploit.

After scoring 3 in 9 first half minutes, you did wonder how many more they’d score in the second 45.

Luckily for Petrolul, they were able to avoid a cricket score.

The Swans still looked to push on to increase their lead to set themselves up for the second leg. The home fans had to wait 13 minutes after the restart for a fourth. Routledge fed Michu down the left and Bony met his cross which the goalkeeper couldn’t quite keep out. It probably went down as an own goal as the shot stopper helped the ball go in with his elbow.

With more than half an hour to play, another goal was a definite. Pozuelo came on to score his second goal in the Europa League. Michu did well to pick him out inside a packed penalty area and he slotted the ball past the goalkeeper. The young Spaniard certainly looks like a talented player with an eye for goal.

With Vorm being mainly a spectator for the entire game, it was surprise to see him have to pick out the ball from his own net. It needed something spectacular though, as the Romanian outfit struggled to keep possession for any decent length of time for the entire game. They struggled to cope with Swansea’s quality, as they were able to regain possession almost instantly.

A goal did come for the visitors though, and it was the best goal of the night. Vorm was rooted to the spot when Grozav found the net with an incredible bicycle kick from 14 yards or more.