Swansea live the dream – but they’ll need to find more heroes like Scott Sinclair to survive in the Premier League

Brendan Rodgers, Swansea (Getty Images)

Related Links

Teams

Players

COMMENT
By Wayne Veysey at Wembley

Amid all the drama, emotion and din of a match truly deserving of the Football League showpiece, there was one over-riding question as the Swansea City supporters commenced celebrations that will probably last half the summer.

How well equipped are Brendan Rodgers’ team to survive, or even thrive, in the Premier League maelstrom next season?

Statistics show a 50 per cent survival rate for play-off winners in the next season’s top tier over the last decade.

Will the flying Swans initially take the top flight by storm like 2008 Play-Off final winners Hull City, win admirers but fall a long way short like 2009’s Burnley or become everyone’s second favourite team but be cruelly denied like 2010’s Blackpool?

These are the possible scenarios that face the first Welsh team in the top flight for 28 years. At the very least, Swansea will join the Premier League safe in the knowledge that they were the third best team in the Championship this season. That is without argument, after they finished third in the table and swept all before them in the winner-takes-all knockout stage.

They have a charismatic young manager with a ‘style and steel’ philosophy, a reputation for playing some of the most attractive football outside of the top flight and a group of players assembled on a shoestring but with the character and calibre to be substantial Premier League performers.

Ashley Williams, the captain and centre-half, is as demanding of himself as he is of others and plays every minute as if it will be his last. Joe Allen, 21, is the midfield dynamo that keeps the team ticking over and has feistiness to go with a wide passing range. Pint-sized winger Nathan Dyer is the club’s player of the year and Neil Warnock’s selection as the best young player in the division this season.

Then there is today’s hat-trick hero Scott Sinclair, who has proved one of the most inspired signings of the season after being recruited for £500,000 from Chelsea last August. The 22-year-old has cast aside a reputation of being a ‘loan ranger’ following temporary spells at six clubs in three years by putting down roots in south Wales and how he has grown.

Rodgers and out | Swansea boss has led the club out of Championship in his first full season

The sinewy dribbler with a great eye for goal took his Championship tally for the season to 22 goals, and 27 in total, by showing a cool head twice in the first half, and, again, towards the end of the second period, to soothe the nerves of those who had made the long journey across the M4 today.

First, he sent Reading goalkeeper Adam Federici the wrong way with a justly awarded penalty earned against the run of play. Then, two minutes later, he swept home the second after Stephen Dobbie had exposed Ian Harte’s lack of pace and teed him up perfectly.

Sinclair had found himself in fine company. The three previous goals scored at that end of Wembley were by Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi and David Villa less than 48 hours previously.

Just when Swansea nails were being gnawed to the bone, he killed off Reading’s spirited revival with a second slick penalty to end 28 years of hurt for Swansea.

A Scott had helped the Welsh into the English Premier League, which will provide plenty of opportunity for those in the capital to get acquainted with the M4 next season. Moreover, the Premier League has got what it always wanted – fixtures in another country.

In truth, Swansea were very shaky on the biggest occasion in the careers of most of their youthful squad.

Their opening two goals were against the run of play and the defence demonstrated an alarming inability to deal with set-pieces as Reading pulled two goals back from corners early in the second period. For much of a fabulously entertaining match, Brian McDermott’s team were in the ascendancy.

Yet, all that will count for nothing when Swansea sit down to count a minimum prize pot of £90million, yielded from a season in the top flight and the parachute payments that would follow should they go straight back down to the Football League.

Rodgers’ first full season in the Championship has provided the perfect answer to those who thought his credentials as a Jose Mourinho cherry-picked messiah were overblown.

To be back in the Premier League a decade after the club was sold for £1 and eight years since they were one defeat from falling from the Football League is an astonishing achievement, especially given the resources at the Irishman’s disposal.

Rodgers has performed coaching alchemy, turning south Wales steel into gold. They have the silverware to go with it, too. But the journey has only just begun.

Follow Wayne Veysey on