Halford: Set Pieces A Weakness For Swansea

Greg Halford said Portsmouth worked on Swansea City's weakness at defending set pieces, and that's exactly how they scored their winning goal.

Liam Lawrence sent in a cross from a free-kick, and the unmarked Halford had the simple task of heading the ball home to give Pompey a deserved three points, as the Swans threw away an early 1-goal lead.

"We`re very pleased with the result. We desperately needed the three points.



It was just a bonus for me that I could pop up and clinch the winner.



I was surprised to get so much space in the box. They didn`t defend well from set-pieces all night.



We always work hard on set-pieces in training but we worked even harder this week because we knew it was a weakness for them. We tried to exploit that as much as we could.



They`re a great passing side but every team has their weakness and we managed to find theirs.



We were talking before the game and we knew how important this match was. To come here and get three points is fantastic."

Halford also said that Portsmouth were quite comfortable towards the end despite only having a 1-goal lead:

"If you concede early on you`ve still got a lot of time to get back in the game but sometimes we do shoot ourselves in the foot. We`ve done it far too many times this season already.



But we showed a lot of character to come back. There is a great team spirit here and the lads are buzzing.



We were quite comfortable at the end. That came from good positioning in midfield and from Kits up front. They made our life a lot easier. Sometimes Swansea managed to penetrate and we dealt with that quite well.



As a defensive unit we were as solid as we`ve been since I`ve been here - aside from the setback at the beginning."

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