Beautiful Swans, Ugly Ducks! Allardyce's Swansea Swan Song!!

The team selection said it all: Allardyce was petrified of Swansea. Why? Because whilst he arsed about recruiting big physical specimens, Swansea went out and recruited quality. Michu was the top scoring midfield player in Spain last year and cost just £2m according to a Swansea fan I sat next to.

At the end of the day, Swansea showed us how the game can and should be played. Their ball retention was a joy to behold and, whilst the first two goals were down to rank errors by Jussi and Collins, the third goal was out of the top drawer - the passing, movement and finish were all excellent.

And what did we offer in return? For five minutes we looked good, pressing high, passing well, freeing up Jarvis who sent in a couple of excellent crosses. Then we dropped deeper and deeper and lumped longer and longer and Cole became more and more detached and with Nolan as one of the "wide men" there was always a flank exposed, and with McCartney and Demel in the full back positions we were always going to be vulnerable to speed and trickery and astute passing. Yes Jussi should be shot for the first goal but the cross should have been anyway better given the space allowed behind McCartney.

In truth Swansea should have had five. Graham missed a sitter and two bad offside calls deprived them of two further golden chances. Yes we had opportunities to score - the Jarvis shot on the turn was excellent, Swansea cleared off the line and Cole headed thin air when any decent striker would have netted, but our only threat was from set pieces, as Allardyce's Land of the Giants tried to bully a goal against Swansea's Lilliputian craftsmen. Even a huge height, weight and reach advantage couldn't help us, however, which, for the good of the game was almost pleasing!

Any positives from the game? Jarvis looked decent. Otherwise were were ordinary or crap.

Are Swansea really that good? Of course not, we made them look like Barcelona and Real Madrid rolled into one! Allardyce should be forced to watch the tape of the game over and over and over and over and then be required to explain why Swansea were so much better than us. The team cost less to assemble - in fact Swansea have shown a profit on transfer dealings this summer courtesy of the Joe Allen sale and will make still more when Man City get Sinclair. So what the fcuk is going on? West Ham enjoy bigger gates and London holds more attractions than Swansea for wealthy young men. So why didn't we know about Michu and why can't we retain the ball like Swansea? 

I will give you a clue, it's a nine letter word beginning with A!

(PS Apologies for the delay - now in Bucharest, it was a long 24 hours!)