Marco Silva again played 1 upfront in a home game. He brought in Hernandez and rightly replaced Elmohamady with Elabdellaoui.
The first half was poor with Hernandez struggling up front as he usually does on his own. Llorente looked a danger but after an aerial clash with the excellent Huddlestone he lost his mobility and was substituted before halftime.
Routledge had the best chance for the visitors in the first half but fluffed it.
HT Hull City 0-0 Swansea City
No changes by either side at halftime but by then Swansea had already used 2 substitutes.
City laboured on until Silva realised what most of the crowd must have known, taking off the ineffective N’Diaye and replacing him with Niasse.
The effect was dramatic and within 15 minutes of coming on City were 2-0 up, both scored by Niasse.
They both came from good interplay by the two strikers and controlled finishes by Niasse.
City then appeared to go back into their shell then and Hernandez looked visibly annoyed when Meyler replaced him.
Swansea gained confidence from this and finally got a goal in the first minute of injury time. In truth Jakupovic should have saved it. He had a poor game by his standards making one glaring mistake punching out a shot directly into the danger area. He was lucky though and got away with it.
FT Hull City 2-1 Swansea City
So a somewhat lucky win and we live to fight another day. One thing Marco must learn from this is that we must play two strikers at home. It won’t happen next week as Niasse will not be able to play against his parent club though.
Tony Atkin – 12.03.16
