Swansea 1-1 Gillingham

Swansea City battled back from conceding an early goal and going down to 10-men to gain a point at home to Gillingham.

It was the Gills' first point away all season but we should have taken all three when we were awarded a penalty in the very last minute of the game. Robinson missed both the spot kick and the rebound.

Just over 13,000 fans were at the Liberty who made themselves heard early on as they hoped we could go top tonight with a sixth consecutive win.

Roberto Martinez was forced into making 1 change tonight as Ferrie Bodde sat out with a hip injury. Robinson was expected to replace him but Roberto chose Leon Britton to partner Darren Pratley in centre midfield.



The game got off to a rather slow start with neither side creating any decent chances on goal. The visitors opened the scoring however after just 10 minutes. Facey let the ball drop and unleashed an unstoppable fierce drive that flew into the top left hand corner, giving De Vries no chance.

Immediately after their goal, Marcos Painter was brought off early having suffered an injury probably and Kevin Austin was brought on.

Things got worse for the Swans 13 minutes later as striker Warren Feeney was shown a straight red for a clumsy challenge.

We finally got our first effort on goal as Pratley tried his luck from the edge of the area but the keeper tipped it over for a corner.

Like our previous games at home, we were struggling to find a break through and it was more boring stuff for the home fans to endure.

The Swans needed a huge improvement if they were going to get anything out of this game, we did improve vastly as we dominated the whole second period, pegging Gillingham back into their own half for long periods of the game.

We started attacking well and caused problems. Jason Scotland was more involved tonight, running inside from the right on a number of occasions but he was never able to get any decent shots on goal.

Anderson was also more of a threat as the visitors simply couldn't cope with his lightening pace.



Despite dominating possession, we were always outnumbered in the box when going forward. We then had a spell where we won a number of corners. We thought we had scored from one but the ref, who was abysmal all game, ruled it out for a foul in the 6 yard area.

Roberto Martinez then made a second change as Dennis Lawrence came off to be replaced by Andy Robinson, as we changed to a more attacking 3-4-2 formation. 13 minutes later Butler made way for Darryl Duffy.



Play was being stopped far too often and our penalty appeals were being ignored. It looked like it just wasn't going to be our night until Paul Anderson scored his 7th goal of the season. The Liverpool winger was unmarked to fire the ball home in the box from Pratley's pass.

With 11 minutes remaining we then pushed for the winner but on a few occasions we were left exposed at the back but luckily Gillingham were unable to take advantage.



As the last minute of injury time approached, unbelievable the shocking referee gave us a penalty, having ignored 2 previous shouts for a spot kick. Andy Robinson stepped up but his low effort was saved as the keeper dived to his right. The rebound fell back to the scouser, he took a touch but his left foot strike was weak and easily saved.

It was a game where we should have bagged our sixth consecutive win and another 3 points. But yet again, we didn't start the game well at all and we wasted the first 45 minutes. Feeney made it a lot harder with his early sending off but we battled back superbly in the second half.

We were by far the better side, even with 10-men and probably deserved to get 3 points, after having 2 previous penalty appeals turned down, dominating play and having a goal disallowed. But it wasn't to be and we have to start performing better at home soon.



Match report by KevinE.



Watch Andy Robinson's late penalty miss:

Vital F1 Prediction League - Join now for Monaco