Rotherham United fans seemed as shocked as we were that they picked up all three points at the New York Stadium today as Swansea City dominated the game with 72% possession but they were punished late on for failing to kill the game off and conceding two soft penalties.
Barring those two penalties, Rotherham created next to nothing on goal and only a direct free-kick tested Kristoffer Nordfeldt before the late drama.
Here are some of the choice quotes courtesy of their FootyMad message forum here
“Swansea are one of the best teams I’ve seen this season against us. They got it right with their attitude and work rate and they’ll not for a long while understand how the lost that!”
“Can’t believe what just happened, Swansea were a class act mesmerising passing but their downfall was their poor finishing and showboating.”
“I have never seen a game that we least deserving of a Millers win that one. We were simply awful especially in the first half. There was a huge article in the paper about how dangerous the winger Daniel James was. He ripped us apart and yet after 30 minutes the person on the pitch who had the most room and wasn’t being marked was….you’ve guessed it Daniel James!!!! Absolutely staggering.”
“We were totally dominated from the kick off. Swansea played some excellent one touch close control football that was a pleasure to se in the first half. MOTM first half – Rodak by a country mile. if I was a Swansea fan I’d be gutted to walk away with nothing but heh oh. UTM!”
“Yep the best team lost although their chucking themselves down on the floor and time wasting didn’t endear me to them.We just couldn’t get near the ball most of the time with their slick passing and they seemed a yard faster than us all over the pitch.”
“It’s all cliches, said many many times, but it doesn’t matter how well your team plays if they don’t put the ball in the onion bag then it counts for sod all. It applies just as much today as it did when we felt like we should have hammered Bolton. Swansea were a great team to watch and played some champagne stuff, that little sod Daniel James was a real threat every time he touched the ball. But for all their top quality play, they could only score one goal. Did we deserve the win? Yes, we scored more than them. Did we deserve the penalties? A pen is a pen, we still have to score them. Were we lucky? Possibly lucky that it was only 1-0 at 75 minutes, but we never gave up despite being outclassed and for that alone we deserve some credit. When Proctor came on we certainly looked rejuvenated and even before the first pen we were starting to push forward and their keeper saved superbly from the free kick. Did Swansea throw it away? Yes, they were arrogant. Their players were arrogant. James took great pleasure in goading the Millers fans when he set up their goal, as did Naughton when he won a free kick that was never deserved. They went into cruise control and expected us to fold. We didn’t, we battled on and for once got a couple of key decisions go our way.”
“Respect to Swansea; they did their homework on us by working the wings effectively and never letting us settle on the ball. They did not take us for granted and instead nullified us and made us look inept. I almost felt sorry for them having to go home empty-handed after a performance like that. (I said almost…)”
“Best side I’ve seen Swansea if they buy a goal scorer I will back them to go up.”
The arrogant comment is an interesting one and I have to admit, I think I agree and it was something I mentioned in our article on the game here. At times I felt we were overly confident and felt that we were in cruise control and simply had to keep the ball in the middle third and see out a narrow 1-0 win. Well, football doesn’t work like that and we were punished for showing very little on goal after Fer’s big chance on 47 minutes.
