Top Twenty Away Days This Century. Number 11.

The Swans recently put a poll out about the best away days in recent years and some of the selections and votes left me feeling underwhelmed. Therefore I’m going to bring you my top 20 over the coming weeks and months and rank them in what I think is the correct order. This is a very tough ask so I’ve drawn up a system to try and separate the games based, on our performance, the occasion, the entertainment, the atmosphere and the result. Each of these is ranked out of five to give a maximum score of 25. 

Chelsea 0-2 Swansea, January 2013

We return to the capital for this week’s countdown and narrowly missing out on the top ten is one of our biggest ever results on the way to winning our first ever major trophy. Having despatched Middlesbrough in our first ever quarter final we faced the Blues at Stamford Bridge in the last four looking for a good result ahead of the return at the Liberty. To say it went better than expected would be a slight exaggeration.

The hosts dominated the first half but couldn’t turn it into goals, but shortly before the break Branislav Ivanovic was caught dawdling on the ball, Jonathan De Guzman seized his chance before slotting Michu in on goal and he did what he does best and stuck it away to give the Swans the lead at the interval.

Chelsea continued to attack us in the second half but it was to no avail, and another error from Ivanovic was to prove costly shortly before the end as he passed the ball back to goalkeeper Ross Turnbull without realising Danny Graham was behind him. Graham received the ball, rounded Turnbull before nearly slipping and regaining his balance to score our second to scenes of jubilation from the 3,000 travelling Jacks who could barely believe what they were witnessing.

Demba Ba managed to find the net shortly before the referee blew for full time, but he was offside so the game finished 2-0 as the Swans put one foot into their first ever League Cup final. 

Performance 4 Occasion 5 Entertainment 3 Atmosphere 3 Result 5

Overall 20