Swansea City 1 - West Bromwich Albion 0

Date:	Thursday 1st January 2026
Competition:	Sky Bet Championship
Swansea: 4.4	(4-1-4-1) Vigouroux, Key (Galbraith, 46), Cabango, Burgess, Tymon, Stamenic, Ronald (Wales, 81), Gonçalo Franco, Yalcouyé (Fulton, 71), Inoussa (Eom Ji-Sung, 56), Widell (Vipotnik, 56) Unused subs: Fisher, Samuels-Smith, Casey, Parker
WBA: 2.9	(4-2-3-1) Wildsmith 3.0, Campbell 3.3, Phillips 4.5, Taylor 3.6 (Dike, 80 3.8), Styles 4.7, Diakité 3.2, Mowatt 3.2 (Molumby, 60 3.9), Iling-Junior 2.6 (Price, 80 3.6), Johnston 4.5, Grant 4.2, Heggebø 3.4 (Maja, 60 4.1) Unused subs: Griffiths, Mepham, Bielik, Bostock, Dupont Manager: Ryan Mason 1.4
Scorers:	Fulton (74)
Referee:	James Linington (Isle of Wight) 4.2
Attendance:	17,416 Home Fans 3.8 Away Fans 5.8

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Ratings submitted so far: 13

Brendan Clegg:

More of the same woe on the road. This was another absolutely awful performance.

Same 11 from Boxing Day, it was simply a hideous first half.

We were second to everything, pumped the ball long and aimlessly and I genuinely think we got more yellow cards in the half than we managed to string consecutive passes together.

No energy, no ideas, sloppy short passes. As is a common theme in this league, Swansea were equally bad and didn’t really lay a glove on us, occasionally making mistakes which enabled us a couple of chances that both Diakité and SIJ didn’t make the most of.

MJ was in the 10 but we were ballooning the ball all over the place so he never really got it on the turn to run with. Wildsmith lamping it into touch or not even with 10 yards of Heggebø was basically the tactic.

A dreadful half with a clean sheet being the only thing good about it.

The second half continued to be poor with no changes despite all of our bookings. I can’t recall anything of note for either side until Mowatt and Heggebø got hooked for Maja and Molumby.

With a bit more energy we actually had a 10 minute decent spell of actually passing the ball and working opportunities. Grant probably had the best 2 but for all his recent effort, his goal and assist returns are meagre for the minutes he gets.

With 15 to go Diakite tracked back well, won the ball but them dallied and tried to dribble forward, got robbed and then they scored with what felt like their only shot on target. It looked a decent hit but also was another that you feel a half decent keeper gets to.

Price and Dike were chucked on, we huffed away but didn’t create anything and that was that.

We can’t defend. We can’t attack. We looked like we’d been talked into feeling tired. There was no plan, no inspiration, no purpose to anything we did.

I’m starting to think that maybe we can’t sack Mason for PSR reasons; that we’re so close to edge of a points deduction that we’re stuck until we can either sell someone or the necessary accounting period is passed. Or maybe the headroom is so tight they feel that improving the playing squad will yield better results than a coach change. I don’t believe Mr Patel, clearly successful in other ventures, would tolerate such obvious under-performance otherwise.

But as each game passes with a guy so out of depth, we run the risk of relegation. It’s grim and it can’t go on.

Wildsmith - 5 To consistently not be anywhere near your target with kicking for a professional footballer in any position is problematic
Campbell - 4 For me, a stupid and avoidable yellow in the first minute rattled him to the point where he was a liability all game and just miles off it on the ball.
Phillips - 6 defended well enough
Taylor - 6 ditto, did enough
Styles - 6 okay but looked tired and once on a yellow was cautious
Diakite - 5 undoes the good with the bad but a decent coach would be finding a way to improve him
Mowatt - 5 second to most things
SIJ - 5 so-so, not terrible
MJ - 5 couldn’t get involved, little supply
Grant - 5 lower energy apart from a bright 5 minutes
Heggebø- 4 looks totally wiped and in need of a rest

Maja - 5 got hold of it to begin with but became as sloppy as the others and he can’t run.
Molumby - 5 at least tried to pass it.
Price and Dike - neither contributed anything memorable.