Swansea City 1-0 Derby County: Late Eom strike sees Swans over the line in drab affair

It wasn’t pretty. In fact at times it was a frustrating joyless slog.

But this was ultimately an important win for Swansea City, who took a big step towards securing their Championship status for another season by seeing off Derby County at the Swansea.com Stadium.

Eom Jisung’s second Swans goal proved the difference, on an afternoon that otherwise offered up precious little excitement for either side. This was, quite frankly, an utterly awful game of football, and very much in line with the 'dog fight' prediction offered up by Alan Sheehan in the week.

Indeed, it took nearly 70 minutes for Swansea to even line up their first shot, while a criminally uneventful first half may well have left a few onlookers pinching themselves just to try and work out if they were still capable of feeling.

If there was anyone from the pharmaceutical industry in attendance, they will have been pondering how they could bottle this up and market it as a remedy for insomnia.

It looked as though the second half would follow a similar narrative, but Eom's late strike means this will go down as a positive afternoon for Sheehan, who’s now overseen an impressive three wins out four at home.

It also means the Irishman has equalled the 11 points he mustered up during his last interim spell, and in as many games too.

If he were to defend this performance, he might well argue that the ends justifies the means as he bids to convince the Swans hierarchy he’s the right man to lead this club forward.

This win doesn’t guarantee Swansea’s second tier status, but with the gap now standing at seven points between themselves and the relegation zone, it feels like a hefty amount of breathing room.

A win over Plymouth here on Wednesday, and one suspects minds can