Swansea City ended their U.S Summer Tour with a goalless draw against North Carolina FC.
Once again, Paul Clement’s side were guilty of not taking their chances as the home goalkeeper had a number of good saves to make, with Robinson’s save to deny Fer’s header the stand-out save of the match.
With temperatures at around 35C, the conditions proved challenging for the Swansea players, as they were thankful for a drinks break shortly before half time.
Clement named arguably the strongest side he had available to him for the start of the game, adopting a 4-3-1-2 formation that say Routledge in a central attacking role behind Tammy Abraham and Jordan Ayew.
Starting line-up:
Tonight’s starting shape: pic.twitter.com/7X7mAVbze8
? Vital Swansea City (@VitalSwansea) July 22, 2017
Tammy Abraham showed some classy touches in the first half and he looks like he’ll be quite a handful for defenders in the Premier League next season. A player who definitely doesn’t lack confidence or pace, you could see Clement is looking for his team to make balls over the top and through the channels for the Chelsea youngster and Ayew to run on to in order to get behind the opposition’s defence.
We dominated a lot of possession early on without really creating a lot. Abraham and Naughton linked up well on the right but the right back’s cross proved a bit too much for Ayew inside the box. Carroll also saw a decent effort fly just off target from the edge of the area. Ayew could have also done better when put through on goal but he delayed his final ball and failed to make use of his fellow front-man.
At the other end, Fabianski had to be alert to denying the hosts in a one on one situation, but other than that, he had very little to do.
With Gylfi Sigurdsson absent, Tom Carroll took over set piece duties, and his delivery was a bit ‘Yodel-like’, poor – with his delivery not always ending up where you’d expected it to be.
Clement then fielded a completely different side by the 66th minute (barring Fernandez), making half of his subs around the hour mark before making the rest shortly after.
Swansea: Fabianski (Nordfeldt 62), Naughton (Rangel 62), Mawson (van der Hoorn 62), Fernandez, Olsson (Kingsley 62), Britton (capt), Mesa 62), Carroll (Grimes 66), Fer (Fulton 66), Routledge (Narsingh 66), Ayew (Montero 66), Abraham (McBurnie 66).
Subs not used: Bartley, Mulder, Barrow.
After denying Fer’s header earlier on in the half, Robinson had to be alert again when McBurnie found some space at the front space to direct a header goalwards.
Despite playing in a deep-lying midfield role, Mesa is sometimes keen to get further forward and got into some decent shooting positions after coming on.
The £11m signing once again showed his quality, and I particularly liked how he was delaying passes, showing his team-mates where to move to before a playing a pass. He’s clearly got an excellent football brain and can dictate our possession-type game.
With no available attacking midfielder following the mass changes, the Swans adopted more of a 4-3-3 setup, with McBurnie playing through the middle up top, and Narsingh and Montero either side of him. Behind them, Fulton and Grimes played either side of Mesa.
With Paul Clement not adopting a 4-2-3-1 system at any point so far during these pre-season friendlies, it appears that our current wingers will have to adapt to playing more of an inside forward role, as our wide play is mostly coming from the full backs.
Much has been said about the quality of our wingers – the five we currently have, and you can hardly blame Clement for looking to move away from our previous tried and tested 4-2-3-1 – we just don’t have the players to make it work any more.
Back to the game, and North Carolina really should have scored a winner with 5 minutes remaining. After Kingsley saw a shot blocked which was cleared, this gave the hosts a chance to get back up the other end and take advantage of Kingsley’s slow tracking back. Their number 20 on the right, picked up the ball inside the penalty area but despite having a good few yards of space, he cut back inside before his toe-poked shot was blocked.
