[Midweek Roundup] Swansea 2 – QPR 0 / updated

Watching Tuesday night football was a treat for the flock of fans at Liberty Stadium, where Swansea City, after a deadlocked first half, pulled off a victory against QPR, starting with Ki Sung Yueng’s 78th minute goal that revitalized his team.

Earlier this week, I tuned into the folks at ESPN FC mentioning that QPR’s leaky defense is one reason for its losses this season. Those claims gained some traction later in the game– a bit when Ki scored that dazzling goal into the bottom corner of the net, but more so when Wayne Routledge went through QPR’s porous defense to score the second goal of the night. When he possessed the ball, Ki recalls choosing between crossing or shooting the ball, and his resulting goal included a bit of both, which explains its really whack angle! Listen to more of Ki’s thoughts about his first goal at Liberty Stadium this season and about his team’s overall performance:

Swansea’s second goal against QPR, with ten minutes remaining in the game, confirmed QPR’s continuing search for its first away win. Some fans criticized QPR’s performance and stressed the team’s need to work on its away form, which Harry Redknapp acknowledged in his post-game conference. Here’s one thoughtful, comprehensive tweet I could find about that:

Both fans and QPR folk are calling the team’s next match against Burnley FC a “must win”, while on Sunday, Ki and his Swansea gang will face West Ham (I mentioned the Bundesliga club Hamburger SV in my previous post, and now I’m mentioning Ham… mmmm, FOOD!)

Switching gears now, this just in: Coach Stielike just announced the Asia-based players that will report to Jeju to prepare for the Asian Cup, which is only 36 days away. Here’s the full list, from the Korea Football News Twitter handle:

[not on the list above but also included in the roster call up: Kang Su-il. He’s a forward for Pohang. He’s half Korean and half African-American, 27 years of age, and this season scored 6 league goals, 1 KFA Cup goal and 2 Asian Champions League goals].

The above list, from my perspective, contains an intriguing mix of both familiar players and fresh faces. I’ll hand the mic over to you, now, Tavern goer: how do you interpret Stielike’s decision to call up these footballers?

Tavern Owner intruding: much celebration at the physical Tavern, high fives, throwing children in the air while yelling ‘GOOOAAALL!’, and ‘mahn-seh’s’ all around for Ki’s brilliant goal on Tuesday.  Apparently Ki dedicated the goal to his wife, Han Hye-jin. Ok, all together now… collective ‘awwww!’ for that incredibly cute sentiment. Nice move Ki, well done.

And in case you missed that goal:

Hella move there by Ki, who normally doesn’t play this far up the pitch. Credit the reintroduction of Leon Britton to the starting lineup. The pair combined nicely, allowing for Ki to adventure up to a more advanced role. Ki’s 2nd goal of the year happens to be his first at Liberty Stadium, very much a bonus to break the deadlock in front of a home audience. His other timely goal this season?  At Old Trafford – Ki’s strike was the very first goal inaugurating the 2014-2015 Premier League season – a nice win against Manchester United (cue Tim’s agony). Last note on the match: thank the buddha that Yun wasn’t responsible for Ki’s goal. That would be Nedum Onuoha, who had trouble all night with Swansea’s attack on the right.  Yun was fairly effective on Tuesday, though might have done better containing incoming substitute Nathan Dyer, who stormed down the left before eventually finding Routledge in the center, his 20 yarder beat Rob Green for the Swan’s 2nd goal (Green otherwise had a spectacular performance). Yun also had one misclearance early in the game- yet had more positives to mention, some excellent defending at times, some timely slide tackles -and I recall he won one particularly tough physical battle with Bony.

One more update: I regret I didn’t mention in my midweek listing the K-League relegation/promotion playoff leg 1 with K-League Challenger Gwangju hosting K-League Classic Gyeongnam- that happened yesterday. And it’s the Challengers with the aggregate lead!

K League Promotion/Relegation P.O. 1st Leg Gwangju FC 3 – 1 Gyeongnam FC (FT)

— Korea Football News (@KORFootballNews) December 3, 2014

Safe to say, that’s an upset in the making. The 2nd leg will be on Saturday December 6

Gyeongnam v Gwangju 2pm Korea Time / 12 am US EST

I didn’t get to watch the game live, but it was streamed live on SPOTV -and from the looks of the highlights, a very entertaining match (that few got to witness first hand). The winner gets promotion to the Classic, the loser goes back down to the Challenge. I’m actually going to root for Gwangju, lot of spirit to that club (and for Gwangju what a ridiculously enormous stadium  #99 KLeague problems)