By David Williams
Swansea City have been told they got away with robbery at Stoke City due to weak officials who awarded Andre Ayew’s controversial late penalty.
The accusation came from Stoke manager Michael O’Neil who was furious with referee David Webb for the decision in the fourth minute of added time.
The penalty handed the Swans a 2-1 win at the Bet365 Stadium, a victory which head coach Steve Cooper felt was deserved for their positive approach, despite the hotly-disputed decision to award the spot kick.
Kyle Naughton went down in the box and referee Webb adjudged that he had been tripped by Jack Clarke in the 94th minute, even though TV replays showed no sign of any obvious contact between the players.
Ayew slotted the winner with virtually the last kick of the game – a result that boosted the Swans’ automatic promotion hopes following two defeats in their previous three games.
Cooper’s side had shown resilience and creativity when Connor Roberts had cancelled out Nick Powell’s opener and the late winner was enough to put them within a point of the top two in the Championship with two games in hand.
But it dented Stoke’s fading play-off chances and O’Neill said: “It was an incorrect call in my opinion.
“It looked as though he tripped over his own leg, only he knows if he dived, but the assistant on that side didn’t give it. It was down to the referee.
“It’s very frustrating because we are in an environment where there are no fans and teams are claiming for everything and putting officials under pressure and they need to be stronger.
“If 20,000 fans are in the stadium tonight I can’t see him giving that. I’ve watched it back three times and I can’t see how the referee could say he is 100% certain.
“It’s disappointing. We hit the post and bar and the least we deserved was a point.”
Cooper said: “I’ll be honest I haven’t seen it back on the TV but I thought it was a penalty at the time. It certainly looked a penalty to me.
“You are hoping a winner will come and you never give up, you keep going and that’s what happened.
“We got our chance with the penalty at the end, we were passing our way up the pitch and we had our wide centre-backs getting in the box to try to create. We were just keeping going and doing what we do and in the end it paid off with the last kick of the game.”
🇬🇭 Andre #Ayew scored a last minute penalty in Swansea’s 2-1 victory against Stoke and this has seen them close the gap on the automatic promotion places to a point.#3Sports pic.twitter.com/o8cXEVcdxc
— #3Sports (@3SportsGh) March 4, 2021
If you think about how it is, we’ve passed our way up the pitch, we’ve got our wide centre-backs getting in the box to try and create.
“It’s not long balls going in and looking for second balls, or forcing the game. It’s us trying to do what we do and, in the end, we did it well.
“We played well tonight, even though we had a difficult start to the night.
“We conceded a goal that can sometimes happen with the way we play, but we put it behind us, we stuck at how we wanted to play and got back in the game with an excellent goal.
An error from Marc Guehi gifted Stoke a sixth-minute lead when his pass was cut out by Steven Fletcher and Powell thumped his shot past the helpless Freddie Woodman.
The visitors were level after 19 minutes when Ryan Manning’s cross was volleyed home by Roberts from eight yards.
Tommy Smith’s vicious drive thumped a post just before the half-hour mark, while Manning was inches wide at the other end.
With 49 minutes gone Fletcher hit the bar from close range and James Chester ballooned the loose ball over, while Angus Gunn made a great save to deny Roberts his second as Swans pushed towards the end.
But the Swans’ first win in Stoke in 20 years was confirmed with the late drama, as Ayew made it 11 for the campaign.
The win leaves the Swans in fourth place in the table, but just a point behind second-place Brentford who have played two matches more.
The Bees lost 1-0 at Norwich City as the leaders extended their advantage at the top of the table to 10 points.
With three rather similar midfielders Swansea lack creativity through the middle while screening the defence well. We are too reliant on wingbacks for attack and teams are wise to that now. We don’t have a quick longer ball option because neither Ayew nor Lowe are good at holding up the ball. Ayew is inconsistent at that and Lowe is hopeless. He can run in behind but not play with his back to goal. Playing both Hourihane and Dandha improves the attack but leaves defence more vulnerable. Looks as if we could come up just a bit short. Against the weaker teams the best bet is go for broke. Play Whittaker, Dandha and Hourihane. Get a goal or two up and put the midfield grafters on to close it down. Against the stronger teams, just pray our luck holds. Going up would have its downside anyway. It would be a miserable season unless the owners spent a lot of money – and I don’t think they’ve got much anyway.