The Gomis “Panther” celebrations strike terror into the opposition.
Swansea is now firmly a fixture bigger clubs dread. Man Utd were swept aside for the third time as Andre Ayew and Bafetimbi Gomis overcame Juan Mata’s early second half strike. Louis Van Gaal’s cunning comeback plan was to bring in Marouane Fellaini and lump balls to him. $300m spent on transfers and that’s all you have?
The problems were not just tactical. Wayne Rooney seems to have problems pulling the trigger despite getting into clearing scoring positions. Memphis Depay showed a lot of initial flash but faded as the match went on. Anders Herrera was a more effective no 10 but could not break away enough from Jack Cork to influence the game more. Sergio Romero is not the answer to David De Gea.
Swansea turned things around as Garry Monk, the thinking man’s coach withdrew Wayne Routledge and brought in Ki Sung-yueng changing from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-2-1 by pushing Ayew up front to partner Gomis. With the tactical switch to a diamond, Monk ensured they would not be overrun in midfield. And as Luke Shaw and Matteo Darmian bombed forward, Swansea had a chance of catching them out on the counterattack. Sure enough Mata’s 48th minute lead did not last as Utd’s attack broke down. Ashley Williams swept the ball forward to Gylfi Sigurdsson who ran down the right channel before turning in a cross headed down by Ayew. Two minutes later, Ayew running down the right after collecting Sigurdsson’s feed, bent the ball with the outside of his left foot brilliantly right into the path of Gomis. The big unit whisked the ball under Sergio Romero’s frame for the winner.
Where was Luke Shaw on both goals? Jogging back casually from forward positions putting none of the Swansea players under pressure. Shaw and Daley Blind were both awful allowing Sigurdsson and Ayew acres of space to pull off their moves.
Gomis and Ayew combined to score all 7 of Swansea’s goals. Talk about potency.