Swansea dominate Minsk in both ties
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In a tie which Swansea were expected to control they didn’t let their fans down as they ran out 5-0 winners over the two legs and now have the final qualifier against Vitesse to look forward to.
Minsk set out a very defensive side for the trip to the Liberty stadium in an attempt to restrict Swansea in the hope they can give themselves some sort of hope going into the 2nd leg in Belarus. However this did not happen. Swansea opened the scoring after just 8 minutes after a delightful 1-2 with Michu and he outmuscled the Minsk left-back to storm into the area and smash the ball into the bottom corner. Things got worse for Minsk when Michu converted a penalty dead on the 15 minute mark after an awful challenge by the Minsk striker. Minsk sat in their shells for the remainder of the first half and Swansea dominated possession with relative ease. The possession led to another goal with Bony smashing in a bullet from 20 yards out into the top right corner.
The game was over before half-time.
The second half started off much the same as the the first with Swansea keeping the ball for fun. Swansea were then awarded another penalty after 47 minutes to heap the pain onto Minsk.
Usual penalty taker Michu gave up his role for new boy Bony who converted the penalty and scored a hat-trick on his debut sending the fans into ecstasy.
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With such a comfortable 4-0 victory in the bag the away tie was irrelevant for Swansea who made many changes for the second tie. Bony and Vorm were the only two players to start in both fixtures, with Laudrup resting many players for the opining Premier League game against Everton at Goodison. A very boring game saw Swansea keep the ball from the start to kill off the clock.
Swansea however did score another when Gary Monk headed in from point blank range after 91 minutes. A comfortable 5-0 aggregate win was exactly what Swansea wanted!
In the post match interview Laudrup praised the professionalism of his side. "I am very proud of the performance over the two legs. We turned up and dominated in both games and fully deserved this victory. We can now focus on the upcoming Premier League games with some form, as for the Vitesse game I am fully comfident we can progress there as well!"
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Pre-season overview
Not really much for Swansea to complain about this pre-season the constant rotation of the squad allowed more players to get game time. Swansea will be content with their pre-season as it allowed youngsters also get game time and they won three out of their seven games.