A commanding performance, not wholly fluent to begin with, but we completely dominated the final 3rd of the game and should have scored a hatful of goals.
As it was, Crewe were fortunate to get away with conceding just the 4 and somehow managed to get themselves a consolation in the dying seconds to go away 4-1 defeated.
We lined up 3-5-2: Ben Hughes; Kai Ludvigsen, Filip Lissah, Ben Blythe; Sam Parker, Cameron Congreve (sub Mitchell Bates 80m), Joel Cotterill, Azeem Abdulai, Nathan Tjoe-A-On (sub Liam Smith 46m); Mykola Kukharevych (sub Iwan Morgan 59m), Josh Ginelly (sub Kyrell Wilson 59m).
Clearly, we’re not going to win every game at this grade – see last Saturday at Barnsley – but Azeem Abdulai, Cameron Congreve and Joel Cotterill are plainly far too good for this level and need to be challenged further, otherwise they’ll simply stagnate over time. Abdulai was understandably guilty of a bit of showboating towards the end, simply because he creates so much time and space for himself and, on this occasion, against crestfallen opposition.
Kukharevych and Ginelly had decent runouts, both need to be mindful of the new refereeing regulations – each was needlessly booked for free kick obstruction and kicking the ball away respectively. It may take a senseless dismissal to make players understand.
Tjoe-A-On had a fairly uneventful first half at left wing back before being replaced at the interval by Liam Smith. One good through ball, one good chase back and interception, otherwise little to assess.
In terms of the goals, Sam Parker got the first on 20 minutes, although at one point it looked as though the referee had disallowed his effort, seemingly for handball.
Crewe fluffed their cues with a scooped miss inside the 6 yard box by Evans just before half-time and a deflected shot over by Woodcock immediately after 2nd half play resumed. Otherwise, they looked a well-beaten bedraggled side.
Congreve’s clever through ball utterly split the visitors’ defence on 50 minutes, allowing Ginelly to spin away and finish clinically from outside the area. Ginelly then created a simple chance for Kukharevych to convert right in front of goal 8 minutes later.
Subs Iwan Morgan and Kyrell Wilson could have quite easily got hat-tricks each as Swansea totally overwhelmed Crewe for the last 20 minutes. Morgan had to be satisfied with catching the goalkeeper in possession out of goal and walking the ball into the net. Crewe’s consolation by Robinson came when we seemed to switch off at the last.
Standouts for us were Sam Parker, who had a really encouraging impact at right wing back, lots of constructive passing and quite a few attempts on goal himself. Filip Lissah was also exceptional – supremely confident in possession and some clever lofted passes to put our forwards into dangerous positions. It was notable that our defenders took very few chances in possession at the back.
Nice atmosphere at the ground, with lots of kids present.