Not deviating from the diagonal

The game

The final score suggests a one-sided encounter and so it was. The defining moment came in the 10th minute when Rami was sent off for the technical infringement of preventing a goal-scoring opportunity. Four minutes later Swansea went ahead, and in the second half delivered twice by the 62nd minute. Then there was about half an hour of Swansea keeping possession effortlessly and Valencia annoying their fans to the very end.

Ups and downs

Mr. Gumienny demonstrated two very positive characteristics. On the one hand he was affable and nice, on the other - he proved to be a no-nonsense referee when it mattered. But there were some obvious question marks to raise about his performance. He strictly kept running in a straight diagonal which positioned him quite afar from certain incidents. Mr. Gumienny didn't apply the advantage rule in some cases which called the ref. for doing so (13', 45+1', 57', 89'). In the first two incidents he showed the yellow card, which is some excuse though referees are allowed to let play on till the first stoppage before brandishing the yellow card. The lack of replays let the ref. get away with not whistling for what seemed to be foul play. Luckily for him, the Valencia players didn't protest in minutes 10' and 58'. In the first case - Bony of Swansea pushed an opponent before getting hold of the ball, dribbling towards the Valencia goal and being pulled from behind by Rami who was deservedly sent off. In the second case - a Valencia player seemed to be impeded just outside Swansea's penalty-area. The whistle didn't go and Swansea with a swift counter-attack scored the very important second goal. One should add, that The first Swansea goal (14') was scored by Bony just a fraction of a second after one of his mates had been pushed inside the Valencia penalty-area... The ars, Mr. Bleyen and Mr. Meers gave ample assistance to the ref. On a rare occasion of tv replay (83'), Mr. Meers was caught mistakenly adjudging Bernat (Valencia) offside while he was actually played on-side by a Swansea defender on the other side of the pitch.