Stoke City won their fourth match in a row, beating Swansea City 1-0 at the Liberty Stadium, after Bojan Krkic ends Swansea’s run of five matches without a loss at home on Monday night.
Swansea seemed rather uninspired in their third defeat of the season. Krkic was lively early in the match, fooling Federico Fernandez and Ashley Williams, who fouled him in the box after only three minutes. The Spaniard converted the spot kick with aplomb and was enough for the Potters to claim a precious three points.
Swansea were chasing the result for 90 minutes, trying to break the deadlock, yet uninspired forward players were unable to influence the match. Bafetimbi Gomis was horrific during the match, unable to find engineer a clear-cut opportunity for himself. Jonjo Shelvey saw an effort squirm past Jack Butland and hit the far post, which was as close as the home team got on a miserable night in Wales.
Here are the player ratings from a dour affair:
Swansea City
Lukasz Fabianski – 7: Did well, didn’t have to intervene many times and Krkic’s penalty was too good to save.
Angel Rangel – 7: Most of the time was good defensively, completing three clearances from his area of the pitch.
Federico Fernandez – 5: Easily tricked by Krkic before the penalty, was very insecure with his passing over the course of the night.
Ashley Williams – 6: Fouled Krkic in the box early in the match, but hardly put a foot wrong for the rest of the game.
Neil Taylor – 6: Tried valiantly to support an out-of-sorts Montero, although his end product was lacking at times when he got forward.
Jonjo Shelvey – 6: Slow on the ball and not his usual energetic self, although unlucky to hit the post with his side’s big chance.
Jack Cork – 5: Hardly influenced proceedings and was sloppy in possession at times.
Andre Ayew – 4.5: Failed to adapt to an attacking midfield role, lost most of his duels and could not engineer a clear-cut chance for his teammates.
Jefferson Montero – 5: Plenty of trickery, but no end product to show for his efforts. Always marked by two players and couldn’t escape their attention.
Modou Barrow – 5.5: Tried to give more agility to the Swans on the right flank, but struggled to influence the game.
Bafetimbi Gomis – 4: Poor positioning, poor first touch and a lack of worth ethic off the ball. Night to forget for the striker.
Substitutions:
Gylfi Sigurdsson – 6: Brought much needed energy to the match and almost scored a sublime long-range goal.
Ki Sung-yueng – 6: Came on and made an impact, creating three chances in just 30 minutes of play. Should have started the match.
Eder – N/A: Not enough time on pitch
Scroll up and click NEXT for Stoke City player ratings
