Cotterill - Scored a beauty today in what was a lucky point for the Toon

A precious point, one to bring us aloft the Coca Cola Championship again, and even Nottingham Forest lost, again aiding our promotion push. Sounds like the perfect day eh? Not for me. A lazy, disappointing and a beleaguered effort from a side who based on todays performance, do not deserve to win the title outright. We were poor throughout the 90 minutes at the Liberty Stadium today and as my previous article suggested, it was never going to be an easy affair away to the Welsh side. Needless to say we didn’t help ourselves, with our

only shot on target coming from the head of Andy Carroll which happened to be the valuable equaliser.

Fabricio Coloccini made a return to the side to partner Fitz Hall as we also saw Peter Lovenkrands and Andy Carroll start up front. The opening stages saw Swansea throw everything at us and were unlucky to go into the HT break on equal terms.

David Cotterill then just before the hour mark, cut inside a defender before curling the ball past a grounded Steve Harper. A brilliant goal, and a deserved opener for the hosts.

As you would normally expect, we’d come out and start to play our game, but no we stood back and let them pass the ball around in front of our noses without ever making a real attempt to dispossess them. Too many times we were dispossessed and too many times we gave stray passes into ‘nomansland.

It wasn’t good enough but in Chris Hughton’s defence, the substitution of Leon Best replacing Peter Lovenkrands made a big difference for me. The Irishman went for the ball at every opportunity in his small spell on the field and looked to bring others into play, something we didn’t do very well in general today.

It so happened that Leon Best was the provider for Andy Carroll’s equaliser and what a great ball it was. Lobbing it right onto the head of his strike-partner, Carroll managed to compose himself and keep his header down.

This, three minutes from FT angered Paolo Sousa who labeled it as a ‘cruel’ draw and very right he is, we didn’t deserve anything out of today’s game. That said, real champions get something out of games even when they don’t deserve to. Many a time we’ve seen Manchester United do that in the past.

Although we’re far from champions, we’ve got a fairly valuable point today and with Forest losing thanks to Billy Sharp and Doncaster Rovers, it means that any slip from West Brom which we’ll be eagerly anticipating, could prove pivotal.

Top of the table as we speak, is love in the air?

Comments welcome 🙂

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