In these parts Chris Billam-Smith, a self-confessed Bournemouth fanatic, is something of a local hero. Last month he defended his WBO cruiserweight title at the Bournemouth International Centre, a venue perched on the seafront, but if this contest was played out in the ring Swansea would have been put of their misery long before the final whistle.
As it happened, the referee, Darren England, had no such powers and so Bournemouth eased into the FA Cup fifth round with a bruising and comprehensive dissection of their Championship opponents. Things were ludicrously comfortable for Bournemouth, so much so that Andoni Iraola could withdraw Dominic Solanke, among those on the scoresheet, at the interval. Solanke capped the scoring on 44 minutes after strikes by Lloyd Kelly, David Brooks, Alex Scott and Luis Sinisterra.
By the time Sinisterra cut on to his right foot and steered a shot into the far corner for Bournemouth’s third goal inside the opening 14 minutes, Swansea’s best-laid plans were in tatters and instead a nightmarish worst-case scenario unravelled, a matter of damage limitation. Andrew Fisher, the Swansea goalkeeper, shook his head in disbelief as Sinisterra, all smiles, wheeled away in celebration on a comfortable evening. “If Swansea score, we’re on the pitch,” sang the visiting supporters who resorted to gallows humour in double-quick time.
Luke Williams, appointed Swansea’s head coach this month, said he apologised to his players at half-time for asking them to implement a game plan that was quickly rendered redundant. “It was a very difficult night and from my point of view, the set-up of the team was wrong,” he said. “We were too brave, too aggressive and had too many players ahead of the ball, and the opposition pressed us too well and we did not cope. When we did get up the pitch, they destroyed us. I was wrong to go too aggressive. I said sorry to the guys at half-time because I set them up in a way that was too ambitious.”
There were, naturally, more eyes on this tie than there typically would have been given it was picked as the fourth-round curtain raiser and televised on S4C, the Welsh-language television channel. Bournemouth seemed to savour the spotlight, Swansea not so much, and the visitors’ defending was so shambolic that it almost felt wrong that it was being beamed to the masses pre-watershed. David Moyes was among those in attendance, the West Ham manager doing his homework before his side host Bournemouth in the Premier League next Thursday.
Bournemouth seized the lead on seven minutes through Kelly, who swept in Brooks’s free-kick, after Nathan Wood tripped Sinisterra. Kelly was totally unchallenged on the edge of the six-yard box, leading Bashir Humphreys, the Swansea centre-back on loan from Chelsea, to ask questions of the nonexistent marking. Three minutes later Scott burst into the box unmarked to double Bournemouth’s advantage, converting Brooks’s cut-back from the byline.
It was embarrassing how easily Bournemouth carved Swansea open but the goals were excruciating from Swansea’s perspective. The fourth stemmed from Solanke slipping Brooks through one-on-one with Fisher on halfway and Solanke added the fifth when he side-footed in Sinisterra’s low cross from the left. Williams stood ashen-faced, arms folded.
Swansea hit a post through Kyle Naughton’s long-distance effort but this was a nonevent from the moment Kelly struck. The only sore point for Iraola was the ankle injury which forced James Hill off. “It is the worst news of the night,” Bournemouth’s head coach said, acknowledging the need for reinforcements at full-back, with Max Aarons also sidelined.
Swansea at least stemmed the bleeding in the second half but things do not get any easier for Williams, whose sole victory since succeeding Michael Duff came against Morecambe in this competition. They resume their disappointing league campaign at runaway leaders, Leicester, on Tuesday. Swansea will surely adopt a more stubborn approach to avoid the potential for another shellacking.
“I said: ‘OK, I made it really difficult for you,’” Williams said of the half-time message he gave his squad. “‘Let’s be realistic, it’s not a game anymore but it is about the people that came to watch us, that travelled a long way. Let’s see the bare minimum and make sure that when they shoot, people are throwing themselves in front of the ball.’ We saw a lot of that in the second half.”
