It was not the result that either manager wanted but any sense of frustration and injustice belonged to Eddie Howe after Bournemouth squandered a two-goal lead and saw a dubious penalty awarded against them on a day when the Swansea supporters briefly threatened to turn on their team.
André Ayew’s instinctive back-heel, only 87 seconds after Dan Gosling had doubled Bournemouth’s advantage, could not have been better timed from Swansea’s point of view. The mood changed and so did the momentum of the game for a moment as Swansea hauled themselves level when Jonjo Shelvey converted from the spot after Simon Francis was rather harshly adjudged to have tripped Ayew.
That goal could have provided Swansea with a platform to go on and win the game against a Bournemouth side that had lost their previous five matches but nothing is straightforward for Garry Monk’s team right now. Confidence is brittle and it showed on an afternoon when Bournemouth played with a belief and intensity that was hard to reconcile with their league position and poor run of results.
Monk spoke about the encouragement he took from seeing his team fight back but it was hard to find many other positives. Boos reverberated around the stadium when Bournemouth scored their second and the discontent, while not as vociferous, was evident again at the final whistle. Swansea have now won only one of their last nine league games and Monk remains a man under pressure.
“It’s not about me,” Swansea’s manager said. “I’m not the important one here. The important ones are the players. It’s trying to help them get back to winning ways, give them confidence and that will be done by results. You could see clearly how much the players wanted to put it right. It didn’t go to plan but I have to give the players massive credit. My job is to try and push these players and get them back to their best, and that’s what I do. Everything else is out of my hands.”
While Monk felt that Andre Marriner, the referee, had been right to allow both Swansea goals to stand, Howe described them as contentious. Francis made some contact with Ayew but it appeared accidental and it also seemed as though the Ghanaian tripped himself up when he finally went to ground. With the first goal, Ayew was close to straying offside. “Simon admitted there was contact with Ayew but felt he tripped over his own feet,” Howe said. “Something about it did not look right. If it was outside the box no one would have argued. Inside the box it is a huge moment in the game.”
Bournemouth’s opener came about after some shambolic defending. Junior Stanislas overran the ball only for Kyle Bartley – one of three Swansea players making his first Premier League start of the season – to kick his clearance against Ki Sung-yueng. Stanislas accepted the gift as the ball rebounded to him and the winger delivered a low cross that King turned in.
Adam Federici denied Wayne Routledge and Éder – another player brought in from the cold – as Swansea threatened to equalise only for Bournemouth to breakaway and score a second. Charlie Daniels carried the ball from deep and off-loaded to Harry Arter, who could easily have opted to shoot. Instead he picked out Matt Ritchie, who was given the time to hold on to the ball before waiting for Gosling to stride into the area. Gosling’s fine first-time shot arrowed into the top cover and the home fans made their thoughts known.
Monk felt that reaction filtered through to the players. “It’s quite natural for them to feel that, especially when you’ve conceded the goal and then you feel that tension in the crowd and they transfer that to the pitch. But that’s where I thought the players deserved tremendous credit for coming back under those circumstances.”
Crucially, Bournemouth were unable to hold on to that two-goal lead for long. Ayew, showing some dexterous footwork, controlled the ball with his right foot and back-heeled home with his left and within the blink of an eye Swansea were level through Shelvey’s penalty. Yet it was Bournemouth who carried the greater threat thereafter.
