Respite

As Ciaran Clark lay on the ground receiving treatment yesterday, two things crossed my mind: a) would Shay Given be pressed into service as an emergency centre half, so short are we of fit defenders at the minute and b) would this make a vast amount of difference anyway, bearing in mind how desperate our defending has been.

Fact is, we got totally battered again in the opening salvoes at Swansea, this despite Lambert shuffling his midfield pack once gain in a bid to find a winning combination. Once more they failed to do anything but stand back and watch the opposition and this time was, in a way, even more frightening as Swansea's strike-force consistently strolled past our back line as if it wasn't there.

Somehow though, the finishing just wasn't there from the Welsh outfit and they displayed a Liverpoolesque talent for squandering goal opportunities. Slowly, ever so slowly we began to inch our way back into proceedings. Benteke showed signs of stirring, Weimann never stopped at least trying and Albrighton was at times industrious (in a Holman kind of way) if not that effective.

Then the magic happened. Weimann scored. Since our last entry in the goals for column, there had been seventeen against, so this was a moment of significance, a glimmer of hope. As the second half wore on and a still dominant Swansea's frustration at not converting this into goals grew, the unthinkable happened. We got a penalty, and with no-one brave enough to even attempt to wrest the ball from Benteke grasp, he took it with aplomb. There's your new penalty taker right there.

Has we won this match though, it would have been a mugging and frustrating though it was to succumb to a late equaliser when most other games had already finished, we couldn't feel too hard done by. The fact that we were a gnat's whisker from going above Newcastle was a sign that we're not dead and buried just yet.

The biggest concern though was the fate of Ashley Westwood - before the nightmare run, he was emerging as one of the season's glimmers of light - we can only hope his absence will be brief.

Two matches ahead now in which to put the traumas of the League behind us. Ipswich will see our terrible form as an opportunity to cause an upset and surely the telly bosses would have done too had our cataclysmic run began before the TV games were chosen. As it is, we get another Saturday 3 o'clock-er and in what sadly will be a half empty Villa Park. Recent form, a pile-up of home fixtures and the somewhat tarnished allure of the FA Cup have conspired to make this the least attractive of our January games.

January is jam-packed full of matches and we can only hope that while Lambert is dealing with things on the pitch, he was an army of lieutenants out trying to bring in some level headed pros to steady the ship, preferably before they all end up getting cup-tied on Saturday.

Not holding my breath though...