Swansea City’s revival under new boss Carlos Carvalhal continues as we gained another useful point, this time away at Leicester City.
The Portuguese boss has still only seen his side lose once in the Premier League, at home against Spurs as former striker Fernando Llorente scored an offside headed goal to help them on their way to a 2-0 victory.
Some might call it a simple case of ‘new manager bounce’, Paul Clement has already, but there’s surely more to it than that. The tactical and more positive approach from Carlos deserves credit in its own right. Confidence is much higher all of a sudden and there’s a new-found belief amongst the players that they can finally win games, or at least, come back from a goal down and get a point – as they did at the Kingpower Stadium today.
Like some of the earlier performances under Carvalhal, it wasn’t one of our better displays today at Leicester. The hosts were excellent, particularly in the first half and we were fortunate to only be a goal down at the break. We struggled against an energetic and dynamic Foxes side, who really should have made better use of their chances.
But the Swans got a goal back early after the restart when Fernandez scored his first goal in two years – heading home from Ki’s in-swinging corner from the left.
We held on for a solid 35-plus minutes after the equaliser, again showing our defensive solidity and discipline.
The point sees us go up to 17th and out of the bottom three – on 24 points, level with three others – Stoke and Huddersfield below us, and Newcastle – who have a game in hand. We’re now only 3 points from Watford in 11th, and four in front of rock-bottom West Brom.
Carvalhal said:
‘One point is important because the history of Swansea at Leicester is very, very bad,’ he said after the match. ‘We achieve one point against a strong team.
‘A game that we did not start well and that was easy to explain because they surprised us with the players they had involved. We expected different players in the offensive dynamic and they created some problems that we did not solve in the first half.
‘They achieve one goal and could have achieved another and they were the team that created the most amount of chances against us since I arrived to Swansea.
Carvalhal was happier with his side’s start to the second half, as they got on the ball more and started to enter the final third of play.
‘But we started to do our game in the last seven to eight minutes of the first half, we started to move the ball better, we showed what we want in the second half.
‘And in the second half we correct the little things that make a big difference in the offensive dynamic and after this we broke the offensive line of Leicester. We stayed more with the ball, played more up the pitch, we shoot on goal and were more near the goal.
‘In the last 10 minutes, Leicester with long throws tried to put more noise on our goal, but we protect the goal very well.’
‘We analyse the opponents and know the weak and strong points so we knew we could achieve a goal from the set pieces in reality, and all teams have weak points which we explored in the second half,’
Once again, the Swans came back to get something from a losing position. That’s 8 points gained from losing positions in as many games, just two short of the 10 we gained last season. That belief and character within the team has been key to our recent revival, as before Carvalhal’s arrival we showed no hope of coming back from a deficit.
‘My team also showed that we do not just have commitment, they have the belief they can turn things around, they are strong in this moment,’
‘This is not the first time, if you remember against Arsenal we were losing 1-0 and after we react very fast and achieve three goals. And Watford was the same, so we are turning games, which is very important.
‘And as a manager I am very happy as this means the mental part of the team is very strong at this moment, and the belief, and this will be important come the end of the season. With organisation and calm we achieved an important point.’
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