By Chris
Jon Stead kept up his record of scoring in every round of the FA Cup as his equaliser earned Notts County a deserved replay in a 1-1 draw with Swansea City in the fourth round.
Luciano Narsingh's strike on the stroke of half-time put the Premier League's bottom club ahead at Meadow Lane but the Magpies went up a gear after the restart, with Jorge Grant coming close on three occasions in quick succession.
Stead, who famously put in a superb performance for Bradford City in their fourth-round upset of Chelsea several years ago, then fired home on the hour mark to guarantee a place in the hat for round five and a replay at the Liberty Stadium next month.
How did the game pan out? Pride of Nottingham's Chris takes a look with this weekend's Tactical Talk.
Was the result fair?
Both Notts and Swansea really went head-to-head yesterday.
Swansea obviously looked full of energy and naturally looked very creative, as any Premier League team should.
Notts struggled to match them at times in the first half – however over the course of the 90 minutes, the magpies’ actually improved and grew in confidence.
A draw is very fair, some fans feel we should have won but honestly both teams could have done this.
How did Notts play?
First half we naturally did a lot of chasing, yet there wasn’t much wrong in terms of heart or performance.
Notts just naturally struggled at times due to Swansea making it different through their play.
One note for me is the lack of pressing at times and I feel defensively we should have shaken off the nerves sooner.
In the second half, Notts really took the game to the Swans and the game became very open as a result.
There was a lot of character, passion and desire in this game from a Notts perspective and reverting back to 4-4-2 really showed why we had done well in previous games before the formation switch.
How did Swansea play?
They played well, credit where credit is due.
However, going 1-0 up there was a lot of time-wasting – in fact, I recall times even before they scored but this is quite normal in football.
Swansea looked creative, very direct and they played neat overlays, which put Notts often on the back foot.
The Swans were a joy to watch at times, and I feel if their strike-force had played better – the outcome might have been vastly different but this doesn’t take anything away from their performance as they did well.
Did our tactics work out?
Reverting to 4-4-2 must have taken some swallowing of Nolan’s pride, it was clear that 4-5-1 isn’t a formation which would work for Notts – could you imagine how many limited chances we would have had against Swansea if we hadn’t have reverted?
I felt the line-up was pretty spot on, it was nice to see Terry Hawkridge starting and I felt we had a lot of width about our play – something that has been lacking even before we went to five midfielders in previous League Two games.
It was clear that Kevin Nolan had told the players to go out and enjoy themselves. Notts played organised but almost with a certain level of freedom.
Attacks were carefully played out, although at times passes did stray or certainly became rushed – this for me was down to nerves and, I feel the tactics were spot on.
How did the referee perform?
There were periods of the game that I felt he liked breaking the action up, solely just to sound his whistle but overall by the end of the game I actually felt he did alright.
Second half he noticeably improved, and as a result allowed the game to flow better.
It was nice to see him standing his ground when players attempted to sway his decisions, something which most recent officials haven’t done well but this referee did okay. No real complaints as such from me.
Who do we play next?
Focusing on the FA Cup here, it’s obvious that the fourth round replay will be against Swansea – yet it will be interesting to see who we might possibly get in the 5th round, provided we make it that far.
I actually feel we stand a greater chance of upsetting them away from home.
How should we play them?
I sent out a tweet before the game against Swansea City echoing my thoughts on how Notts should be balanced and, defensively aware.
I felt breaking out on the counter would serve us well, especially if we didn’t commit too many players forward.
This would ring true playing them in our 4th round replay, it’s important that we don’t get a rush of blood and go all attacking on them.
We need to build carefully, pressing them into wider positions as a way to open the game up.
Jorge Grant did really well with taking a lot of the play forward, with the likes of Elliot Hewitt running himself into the ground.
These will be things we must repeat when fancy Swansea next.
I would like to see our two strikers stay further up the field, however if we can find a way to get the best out of Liam Noble – I feel his energy being found could give us two players to unlock any opening which may present themselves.
It’s important we go and, in the process ask questions – ensuring that Swansea City’s defence doesn’t have it easy.
If we pressure them in the right way, I feel a cup shock could very well be on the cards – as winning a team at their home ground often happens against the big boys as it lifts the opposition players.
Swansea City fan views (from The Fans Network)
Londonlisa2001: I thought we were absolutely woeful. We were a little better in the first half than the second, but we didn't give a crap. Not giving a crap and playing at half speed when you saunter out a 2 goal victory is one thing, doing it and not being able to beat a team that together quite possibly gets paid less than Bony is on is a disgrace. I didn't see it as a chance to walk around and build patterns, I saw it as a chance to give it our all (at least until safe), and score some goals in an attempt to create some confidence and put some zip and spark into our lacklustre forward line.
Cockneyswan: After watching that abject performance, I think Carlos message must have been "ok if you can win it without too much effort do it, however if we lose don’t worry, we got bigger fish to fry." Unfortunately Notts co delighted with another pay day.
Jackrabbit: I only saw the second half but it was obvious that County wanted it more. I sincerely hope Bony is unfit and lacking match practice because he was dreadful - slow, ponderous, clumsy and indolent. Both he and Abraham were AWOL in the goal area. A centre forward needs to be pressurising the goalkeeper, be on hand for crosses in front of the goalkeeper and be available to tuck away rebounds - neither of them were ever there when they needed to be. Abraham was our only touch of class at the start of the season. What has happened to him? Ki made mistakes but he looked classy - he passed the ball well and tried to slide balls inside the fullback for Narsingh to run on to. He doesn't deserve the special bile he gets on here. At least he looks like a footballer. Ayew must have been as underwhelmed as we were by the Swans performance because when he came on he decided he would beat County on his own. All in all Swans looked like a team that were saving themselves for a big game on Tuesday night. I thought County were terrific.
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