Swansea City vs Stoke City. Sky Bet Championship.
Swansea.com StadiumAttendance14,546.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Swansea City and Stoke City at the Swansea.com Stadium on Saturday; Goalless draw in South Wales between Luke Williams' Swans and Narcis Pelach's Potters.
Saturday 5 October 2024 18:55, UK
Swansea and Stoke had to settle for a point apiece after playing out an entertaining goalless draw at Swansea.com Stadium.
Stoke had arrived in Wales on the back of a 6-1 midweek demolition of Portsmouth, which had given new boss Narcis Pelach his first win since taking charge last month.
Luke Williams' Swansea also had an unbeaten home run in the Championship this season to defend, and they set about their task confidently and competently from the start.
Visiting goalkeeper Viktor Johansson was brought into action for the first time after only three minutes to deny Ronald with a full length save, and 10 minutes later he had to catch a Ben Cabango header.
Eric Bocat then forced Lawrence Vigouroux into action in the home goal as he was sent through for a one-on-one after a defence-splitting pass from Bae Jun-ho, but the Swansea keeper won the battle with his feet.
Eom Ji-sung kept causing problems down the left flank for Swansea and in the closing minutes of the opening half he forced a great save out of Johansson and then hit the bar.
A diving header from Slovenian striker Zan Vipotnik almost gave Swansea a flying start to the second half, but once again Johansson kept his goal intact.
The next chance fell to Stoke's man of the moment Tom Cannon at the other end after he was set free by a great through ball by Bae.
The 21-year-old Leicester loanee had opened his goal account against Portsmouth earlier in the week and went on to score four - the first Stoke player in 24 years to score that many in one game.
This time Cannon fluffed his lines as he took on the shot from the edge of the 'D' and saw the advancing Vigouroux save superbly with his feet.
Having been so dominant in the first half, Swansea found themselves holding on as Stoke pushed forward at the end and through the nine minutes added on by referee Andy Davies.
Cabango headed a Cannon shot off the line and it took a great challenge from Harry Darling to stop Million Manhoef from hitting the target for the Potters.
Swansea's Luke Williams:
"We're having the same talk in the dressing room game after game - I might just as well put the team meeting on repeat.
"It's difficult to get away from that being the case, but there is a lot to be optimistic about because we only have to change a small amount.
"We've had three games at home that we've drawn that we should have won, and if we'd converted those draws into wins we would be sixth or seventh.
"The challenge for us has been to create more bit chances and we did that today. To do that at West Brom or Sheffield United, or even Norwich at home, is difficult against very good teams.
"When we played Sheffield (1-0 loss in midweek) they had only conceded one goal and we knew chances would be at a premium, but we created one unbelievable chance just before we conceded an own goal.
"Today is a more evenly contested game between the two teams but we created a lot of good chances. It's encouraging and turning those chances into a reality would be perfect.
Stoke's Narcis Pelach:
"I've only had 20 days in the building so I've not had much time to coach. But I think the body language and the attitude of the players has been amazing.
"I'm pleased because that's all I can ask. It's just one point, but the performance was good because it was going to be difficult to put in another performance like we had midweek.
"It was a nice game of football to watch but without any goals. That's strange given the amount of chances."
