Championship leaders Swansea and visitors Wrexham fought out a 0-0 draw in a passionate all-Welsh affair. Chances were hard to come by on a night when the sold out signs went up at the Swansea.com Stadium and there was more graft than craft on show. Neither goalkeeper was tested until Zan Vipotnik slid Moussa Yeo’s cross into the arms of Anthony Patterson nine minutes from time, while Kieffer Moore tested Swansea’s Lawrence Vigouroux in stoppage time. Red Dragons boss Phil Parkinson might have felt Swansea should have been reduced to 10 by then following Ben Cabango’s lunge on Callum O’Hare.
Celebrity investors had stayed away with no sign of Swansea pair Snoop Dogg and Luka Modric or Wrexham co-owners Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds. The Pontarddulais Male Voice Choir were present, though, and a rousing pre-match rendition of Max Boyce’s ‘Hymns and Arias’ lifted the crowd. Swansea sat top of the table at kick-off with 10 points from four games and head coach Vitor Matos suggesting in his programme notes that they were building something special. Wrexham had experienced a trickier start, but travelled in good spirits after recording a first win of the season at Millwall on Wednesday.
Both camps ignored the old adage of never changing winning teams – Swansea making three and Wrexham five – with the visitors handing a debut to O’Hare, a £6.5million deadline day signing from Sheffield United. There was a lively start befitting of a derby with Ryan Longman leaving a calling card on Josh Key, much to the displeasure of Swansea supporters. Swansea started the better and there were loud shouts for a penalty, at least from the home crowd, after 18 minutes. Melker Widell played the ball into a central area and it struck the hand of Longman, but referee Elliot Bell was not interested.
Wrexham slowly settled, enjoyed greater possession and found space with raking diagonal balls. One such pass from Callum Doyle released Danny Imray down the right and the wing-back got past Josh Tymon. Imray’s cross found O’Hare in the box but he was quickly surrounded by Swansea defenders and the opportunity was lost. The first genuine chance came five minutes after the restart when Sam Smith nodded Ben Whiteman’s pass into the path of O’Hare.
He took a good touch to create shooting space but his effort went across the face of goal. Wrexham went close again when Josh Windass, one of four substitutes introduced after 62 minutes by Parkinson, drove into a congested penalty area and struck Max Cleworth before drifting wide. Referee Bell was surrounded by angry Wrexham players after Cabango took out O’Hare on the touchline. But the verdict was a yellow card, not red, as Swansea took a one-point lead at the top. “Happy with the clean sheet.
Keeping clean sheets is quite important for building momentum. At the other end, of course I’m not happy because we could’ve won the game. We had the chances to do that. We knew it would be a quite physical one and our pitch didn’t help us as well.
It was quite heavy so it was hard to keep the quality and speed we wanted. On being a point clear at the top of the Championship: “It doesn’t mean a lot. There’s still a long way to go. It’s more important to keep the desire to fight for every game. “We have a really tough trip to Southampton.
If we keep that the desire then we have a good chance to compete.” “We’ll take the point. It was always going to be a tough game. I thought the lads stuck to the task at hand and grew in confidence, belief and quality as the game went on. In the end we probably had the best changes to win the game.” On Ben Cabango not being sent off: “A couple of things.
Firstly Cabango grabs Kieffer [Moore] around the neck on the halfway line. That’s a definite bookable offence that wasn’t given. Then he has the challenge which is a straight red. It’s a dangerous, out of control challenge.
One which can really injure a player and the same referee sent off Callum Doyle against Oxford last year for a challenge that was nowhere near that level. “I’ll be interested when he reviews that challenge and see how he sees them in the cold light of day. Those challenges that are out of control and can injure players are the ones that, in my book, they’re the ones that are reds.”
