With Michu, Vorm & Neil Taylor all involved in wins in their internationals last night, Bony will be hoping to send Ivory Coast one step closer to the World Cup
I thought I'd do something of an "international watch", seeing as we've got very little to talk about this weekend and a few of our players have been involved in their countries respective international exploits. Pleasingly, the three players who played last night were all involved in wins which should help instil some confidence ahead of their return to the squad, although there is still another round of fixtures to come.
Wilfried Bony looks likely to be involved in Ivory Coast's World Cup qualifier against Senegal today, and he'll be looking to get back into the goalscoring habit after a quiet couple of weeks. Strikers live on confidence, and scoring at international level would no doubt help a player who Michel Vorm this week called "a monster".
With three different countries already having utilised players plying their trade in SA1 however, let's have a look at how they got on.
Wales
Neil Taylor
Wales had suffered what must surely be a record number of withdrawals from the squad, but in fairness they produced their best performance for quite some time. Inspired by Aaron Ramsey throughout, they triumphed one-nil over Macedonia thanks to a well worked goal finished by Simon Church, although it should have been 2-0 as Ramsey failed to convert a penalty he'd earned himself.
Neil Taylor played 90 minutes at right-back, and seeing as he's been struggling for minutes on the pitch this stands him in good stead for two reasons. Firstly, and obviously, any ninety minute runout obtained by a player not currently nailed on for a first-team berth is undoubtedly good news, as match fitness is crucial at the top level, and secondly it's further evidence that, if needed, Tayls can operate on the opposite side of defence to where we're used to seeing him play, despite being predominantly left-footed.
With Dwight Tiendalli receiving criticism for his recent performances in the absence of Angel Rangel, and fellow Wales international Jazz Richards on loan at Huddersfield (Jazz didn't make it off the bench last night, sadly) Taylor has a real chance of featuring at right-back for the Swans before the season is out, even if Laudrup has so far seemed reluctant to deploy him on the right-hand side. Hopefully Wales can put on a good showing against Belgium (gulp!), which will give Taylor & Richards some confidence before they head back to club duty.
Holland
Michel Vorm
This is the game I didn't manage to watch any of last night, and it seems it's probably one I should have! It finished 8-1 to the men in orange, and rarely will you see a more lopsided scoreline in international football between two sides who are both supposed to take this kind of thing seriously. San Marino, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg...these are all sides you'd expect to be on the end of a schooling, but given Hungary's illustrious football past (which relied heavily on Puskas, granted) this will be a result which is hard to swallow.
It's a shame that Vorm couldn't collect a clean sheet to add to his team's eight goals, but seeing as the only goal they conceded was from a penalty conceded by Jeffrey Bruma for handball, the Dutch management won't be concerned. It seems as far as easy runouts go for goalkeepers, this was a particularly unchallenging one. Still, another win and hopefully Vorm can start to cement his place as Holland's no1.
Spain
Miguel Michu
When it was announced Michu was starting, I was very excited indeed. As someone on Twitter pointed out, that meant the Swans had supplied Holland with their goalkeeper as well as current World & European Champions Spain with their centre-forward. Mental.
They were up against a Belarus side who parked the bus spectacularly. Until Xavi's opener in the 61st minute Spain had struggled to create anything and if I'm honest Michu's debut was quite underwhelming - that being said though I think anyone asked to play his position in Spain's system would have had a frustrating night. Belarus had, for large swathes of the game, two banks of defenders which included pretty much their entire team, and it surprised me Spain didn't drop deeper in order to stretch the game. They seemed intent on ploughing through the mêlée but never looked liked doing so in the first half.
Sadly for Michu, he was replaced in the 57th minute by Alvaro Negredo, so it could well be that it's viewed that Negredo's arrival changed the game in Spain's favour. Whether that was the case I wouldn't like to say, however I did feel that as Belarus tired the game would open up, and Negredo's goal (Spain's second) was exactly the type Michu loves gobbling up. Hopefully he'll get another chance to show what he can do, and with Georgia up next you'd imagine he'll get some minutes off the bench at the very least.
That being said, do we want him to score? I got thinking about this last night. First of all, I wanted him to bang in a hat-trick, but then I thought "What would happen if he did?". Big clubs would come in for him, that's what. Playing for Spain puts you in an elite class which clubs look to for new signings when things aren't going their way, and with his goalscoring exploits in the Premier League already going far from unnoticed, further success at international level could well prove a catalyst for big club interest. So it was that sad as it was for Michu I wasn't too nonplussed to see him leave the field without a goal.
Call me selfish if you want. I'm a Swans fan not a Spaniard.
It would have been nice to hear the Spanish commentators screaming "MICHUUUUUUUUUU!!!!", mind...