Rodgers hails ´terrific´ Swansea

Swansea City manager Brendan Rodgers applauded his team’s discipline during their 3-1 win over Bolton Wanderers on Saturday.

Hosts Swansea led 2-0 in the English Premier League match at the Liberty Stadium, before a Danny Graham own-goal brought Bolton within sight of an equaliser.

The Welsh outfit gave up a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 away to Wolves last week, and Graham’s error sparked fears of a similar collapse.

But the home side steadied themselves well, and Graham atoned with a 90th-minute effort that made the result safe.

“That was a terrific performance against an established side, but the most impressive thing today was how we managed the pressure,” Rodgers said.

“We spoke in the week that in every game you will have moments, no matter how comfortable you are, where you have to manage the game.”

“Last week we failed to do it and drew 2-2, but this week when Danny scored the own-goal to put them to 2-1 you then saw the difference in the team.”

“We opened up the spaces, passed the ball and hid the ball from the opponents for five or 10 minutes and that’s something we had talked about in the week, different ways to manage the pressure.”

“Our best way to do that is to keep the ball and take the sting out of the game. We scored three and we could have had more so it is very satisfying.”

Bolton had veteran fullback Ricardo Gardner sent off for committing a second bookable offence three minutes into the second half.

Visiting manager Owen Coyle questioned the decision to dismiss Gardner, and felt referee Mark Clattenburg might have penalised Swansea players for similar infractions.

“It felt like two soft yellow cards, but that’s the nature of the game now,” Coyle said.

“But having said that, (Neil) Taylor in the first half clearly pulled Mark Davies back and it went unpunished. I think ultimately we want a bit of consistency in the game.”