I sometimes wonder if.....

This is the man who of course was sent to the stands on Saturday for complaining over a tackle on Leon Britton that was so late it could have been made on Sunday, 24 hours after the game had finished. Hodgson commented

"I don't think we deserved all three points, but I thought we did enough in the second half to claw something out of it,

"The main difference between the two sides was Lee Trundle. He looked like the only player on the pitch capable of scoring.

"Roger Freestone made a great save and when you look at the table the teams at the top are the ones who score from those chances and the ones at the bottom are the ones who don't."

This is of course the manager of a team whose side mustered an incredible 5 shots in the whole 90 minutes compared to the 17 shots from the home side. Compare this to Swansea's 9 shots on target to Darlington's 3. Do you think that those stats suggest a game that deserved to end in a draw. And of course I forget the 23 Darlington fouls compared to 9 from Swansea.

He is however observant over Lee Trundle but it didn't take the most memory retentive of people on the weekend to realise he was raining in shots - managing 5 shots on target in his 7 for the whole match - more than Hodgson's side managed between them.

I really do wonder, even on Saturday I did, what game Hodgson was watching. A late tackle would have him shaking his head as they had a player booked and for him now to state that they deserved a point seems a bit ambitious to say the least. Maybe he has been taking lessons in seeing what you want to see from his chairman at Darlington?

Swansea played badly on Saturday but they deserved the win and it's wins like that that can make a big difference at the end of the season. I have no doubt we will play better and lose but we won't win too many playing worse than Saturday.

Meanwhile Daniel Nardiello has returned to Old Trafford after his one month loan spell at the Vetch. Nardiello had seemed keen to remain at the Vetch for a longer spell but has now returned to the Premiership champions - whether it was at their request or Swansea chose not to renew is open for debate. A decision is expected later in the week from Sir Alex Ferguson over Alan Tate with Izzy Ireiekpen's three month deal expiring tomorrow. No word from the club at the moment of the extension of this.

Lee Trundle nets the only goal of Saturday's game

© South Wales Evening Post 2003

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