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Swansea falls to Arsenal in Bradley’s debut match

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Bob Bradley faced a difficult assignment in his first Premier League match, and the Swansea City manager saw his side fall just short against one of the league’s elite.

A brace from Theo Walcott led the way for Arsenal, who overcame a red card to Granit Xhaka to hold on to a 3-2 win over Swansea City. The loss drops Swansea into a relegation position with just four points through eight games.

Arsenal raced into the lead midway through the first half, as Walcott provided a pair of scrappy goals. The Gunners took full advantage of two poor defensive sequences, with Walcott pouncing in the 26th and 33rd minutes following calamitous efforts from the Swansea backline.

The Swans jumped back into it just five minutes after going down two, with Gylfi Sigurdsson taking advantage of a misplaced Xhaka pass. The Icelandic star pounced, leaving Petr Cech helpless as Swansea pulled one back before heading to the locker room.

Mesut Ozil restored the two-goal advantage 12 minutes into the second half, but a goal from summer signing Borja brought the Swans back moments later. A red card to Xhaka in the 70th minute opened the door for a Swansea comeback, but Bradley’s side repeatedly fired shots straight at Petr Cech, who made four saves on the day.

Following the loss, Bradley’s Swans return to action next week with a home match against Watford as the former U.S. Men’s National Team boss looks to seal his first points with his new club.

Comments

  1. Who has the better chance of being a Premier League manager next season, Bob Bradley at Swansea or David Wagner at Huddersfield?

    Reply
      • Not sure how you are tying Bradley’s probable fight against relegation (17th place) to David Wagner and Huddersfield Town’s promotion (2nd place in the Championship). You must really have an American inferiority complex if you think Wagner would get sacked earning The Terriers first trip to the BPL ever just because Bradley failed.

  2. Can we stop with the daily Bob Bradley articles now? I hope Bob does well and lasts at Swansea for awhile, but I’m a little Bob overloaded at this point.

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      • If the option is: expect more from SBI than you would be correct.

        SBI has become notorious with flooding the same story by 5 different “reporters” for the past few years now since Ives went full time at Goal. Don’t get me wrong, SBI is “free” but we’re providing clicks and traffic that is finding it’s way into someone’s pocket.

        It’s just too bad soccer journalism in this country is still a niche and not higher quality.

      • The solution Jamie suggested is don’t click on the article if you don’t care about the subject matter. Ding ding ding I am the winner.

      • I know its a big deal, and I am fine with a wrap up article and the preview article on Thurs or Fri, just don’t think now that he’s started to manage that we need an article everyday. Although with MLS wrapping up and the Nats in recess maybe there isn’t much else to write

    • I’ve been coming to SBI for at least 10 years for these articles. As a Yank living abroad, I love getting a stateside perspective. I’ll take as much of it as I can get.

      Reply
  3. Bob summed it up properly post game when he said the Swans showed Arsenal too much respect. You have to be confident and precise, something they lacked especially in the first half. Fernandez was horrible, probably responsible for 2 goals smh. There were some positives to definitely build on from this game

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  4. Bad first half for the Swans, miscommunication mistakes on the first two goals, but they had several good chances to equalize in the 2nd half. Would have been a storybook start for Bob.

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  5. Well……………. first match, very tough opponent obviously. Long ways before we can reasonably, conclusively judge. One match impression? Familiar refrain for a Bob Bradley team. They put in a tough scrappy performance and hung in there in a match in which they were overmatched, out talented and under skilled.

    Reply
    • Swansea had plenty of opportunities to score. The players could not put those headers away. Two of the goals Swansea gave up were because of awful individual defending. Tough loss.

      Reply

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