KENNY JACKETT, THE Swansea City manager, might have been counting the cost of three points to his injury- ravaged squad after victory at the City Ground, but it is Gary Megson, his Nottingham Forest counterpart, who may yet pay the heaviest price.
Injuries to three players — two centre backs and Lee Trundle, the striker, who hobbled off the pitch with a hip injury after scoring the winner — means that Jackett may have to apply for an emergency loan signing, but he can only feel for Megson, who appears to be on borrowed time.
The home team’s manager used his programme notes to restate that he had no plan to resign, a move he felt forced to take because “everyone keeps asking me if I’m going to”. His relationship with the local media is strained and he is no longer co-operating with one newspaper after a bad headline too many.
But the former West Bromwich Albion manager still managed to pull positives from a performance that suggested that, given time, his team are good enough to reverse their fortunes. “If there was an acceptable way to lose a game that was probably it,” Megson said. “I don’t think we can turn on anybody and that’s what you’ve seen in terms of the reaction by the crowd today. I don’t think you can question the integrity of the players.”
But while Megson believes that his team are going in the right direction, the League One table suggests otherwise. It was his team’s second successive home defeat in a run of six matches without a win and they are only six points off the bottom four. That is relegation form from a team the bookmakers had considered favourites for promotion.
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With Jack Lester and Nathan Tyson up front, they have the quality to turn their season around and it was those two players who combined for the opening goal. Lester dropped into midfield before running at the Swansea defence and threading the ball through to Tyson, who tucked away his fourth goal in seven matches.
But Swansea had quality where it mattered most, even if their limp performance suggested that third place flatters their limited abilities. Adrian Forbes, the substitute, equalised when he lobbed Paul Gerrard with a sublime first-time shot with the outside of his right foot, before Trundle added the coup de grâce with his first league goal since November, curling home a dipping winner.
It was his last kick of the match before trudging off the pitch clutching a hip to join Steven Watt and Izzy Iriekpen, the central defenders, on the casualty list.
“It is a good win but at a cost because we have a premium of central defenders,” Jackett said, adding that the prognosis on Trundle was uncertain. “Gary Monk is back (against Bradford City on Tuesday) and that gives us one central defender, so unless I’m going to play some sort of new system, then an emergency loan is a possibility.”
Megson must wish his own crisis could be so easily solved.