Allardyce on... Swansea

  • by Staff Writer
  • Monday, 28th October 2013

Disappointment - once again - with the quality in the final third left Big Sam scratching his head - although he was happy with yet another clean sheet on the road...

Sam: A point, but do you think you could have had all three today?

We should have had it over and done with by half time with our classic counter-attacking football. Unfortunately for us, yet again our finishing qualities have let us down. We've not worked their goalkeeper as much as we should have with such clear-cut chances.

The Ravel Morrison one? He should have just squared it to Mo Diame on the far post and he'd have had a tap in. Then there's Guy Demel with two chances, Mo Diame with another and Stewart Downing's hit a couple. Ravel Morrison's got in the box but the deflection doesn't go our way.

So there's enough chances for us away from home on the counter attack but we limited Swansea to one header from a set piece which was brilliantly saved by Jussi [Jaaskelainen]. Second half we didn't pass it as well as we did in the first, but we saw the game out quite comfortably. Still, it was disappointing that we created so many chances away from home and didn't score.

This is our fifth clean sheet out of nine [Premier League] football matches. It's five away games from which we've only conceded one goal - from a penalty - but we've only nine points in total. That's just not good enough on the basis that five times we've only needed one goal to win a game of football - and we haven't achieved it as much as we should have done. Had we done that, we'd be sitting pretty in the Premier League.

How much of a frustration is that for you at the moment?

It's very frustrating for me because they were simple chances today, they weren't difficult ones. In the end we're not even hitting the target to make the 'keeper work. He might make a mistake, who knows; he nearly puched one in his own net. It doesn't matter how you score, just that you score them and get the ball in the back of the net.

Unfortunately that's eluding us at the moment but overall we've played against a side that tries to create and we stopped that today. We hit them on the counter attack and exploited the space, particularly in the first half. I was a little disappointed that we didn't create more in the second but a point is a point and you've got to respect it away from home - and it was another fantastic clean sheet from the boys.

Overall though, with the personnel you've got, do you just keep working with them and try to get them a little more composed in front of goal?

Yeah, we have to. We scored three goals last time out at Tottenham so it shows we can finish. We had easier chances today to score today than against Tottenham! We've got to keep believing, keep making them and eventually, if we keep the clean sheets going, one will go in and that'll win us three points.

From a defensive point of view, away from home we're oustanding; we've probably got the best defensive record in the Premier League at the moment having only conceded one from a penalty (that shouldn't have been a penalty at all). At the other end the goals are just eluding us but we'll respect the point, like I said.

* Sam Allardyce was talking to the BBC.

* Something to say about this story? Please visit the KUMB Forum to leave a comment.



More News