First-half dismissal of Ivorian striker left the Swans blunted
On an afternoon where the early exchanges seemed to indicate we could well have got something from the match, we instead had to watch our beloved team battle to cover space following Wilf's first half red card. It was completely unnecessary, and I don't say this often, but unfortunately we can lay the blame on his doorstep for today's result.
Prior to the red card the Swans had been in the ascendancy. Koeman's decision to bench Wanyama looked like it was crucial (though obviously he ended up making the difference, ironically), as a nervy few moments early on aside I thought we were controlling things. Ki looked sharp in midfield and Sigurdsson was finding space, linking well with Routledge & Dyer like he's done to such great effect already this season.
We had chances too. Bony set up Sigurdsson but he could only hit it straight at Fraser Forster, while Routledge went close twice. The first would have been even better than the West Brom strike, hitting the ball out of the sky but not being able to quite keep it down, while the second was the result of a neat through ball and saw him hit the top of the bar with the Saints' keeper beaten. As with against Chelsea we would go on to rue these missed chances.
Referee Jonathan Moss had a tough time of it today. He took a lot of stick from home fans, and some from me if I'm honest, but you simply cannot argue with Bony's dismissal. It came in the 38th minute, just when we had really been starting to assert ourselves, and it was just plain daft. His first yellow had been for clattering Yoshida with the centre-back already mid-air - always a dangerous tackle and a blatant yellow card. The second yellow was even more ridiculous as after losing the ball he dived in from behind in frustration, and being completely honest I've seen people get straight reds for tackles like that. Luckily the fact he was sent off for two yellows means he'll now only miss one game, which happens to be the cup game against Everton where Gomis would likely have started anyway.
After he eventually left the field Gylfi pressed further up the field and it remained this way until, belatedly, Wanyama (on from the bench) stole through on the right and finished in the top corner across Lukasz Fabianski. The goal came in the eightieth minute and after originally having my doubts that we'd be able to hold on "as is", I'd just started to believe we could hold on for 0-0. This was perhaps helped by the epic rendition of "Garry Monk's Barmy Army" which seemed to go on forever, but either way when the goal went in I felt very, very deflated.
Despite a couple of half decent chances until that point we'd contained the Southampton threat fairly well. Pelle looked a menace up top but there weren't too many clear cut chances, but ultimately the fact that most of the football was being played on the edge of our area told. Just before that Sigurdsson could be seen visibly urging his teammates to press up and out when the ball was cleared - if everybody in the team worked as hard as Gylfi I don't think we'd ever lose a game. I'm not saying others don't work hard, just that he works harder.
Even he couldn't stem the flow though. It wasn't until the eighty-fifth minute - five minutes after the Kenyan had scored - that Emnes came on for Ki and it seemed the ball stuck a bit more up top. The obvious thing to say is that we should have brought on Gomis earlier, so that we could attempt to build attacks in order to avert opposition pressure, but I thought that, one sloppy moment aside, we did very well. The big positive to take from this is that, with ten men, we almost got a deserved point against a team we'd hope to be around in the table come the end of the season.
Maybe it would have made a difference bringing Gomis on around the seventieth minute but who do you sacrifice? Sigurdsson worked as hard as anyone, you need pace out wide while sacrificing a midfielder - which we did by bringing Emnes on - would have been seriously risky with half an hour to go whilst down to ten men.
So we move on. Everton next in the cup and with Gomis now seemingly certain to start, it's debatable whether Wilf will come back in for the following game against Sunderland. I'm sure Wilf will be his own harshest critic but he did cost us today - though in mitigation he's won us lots of games already in his year here, and I'm sure he'll go on to win us lots more. Just cut out the sliding tackles.