Swarnham 1 - 4 Bladdon City

Key Events:

• 3' Bladdon City Artur Bettencourt scores
• 23' Bladdon City Saliou Sow scores, assisted by Salih Begić
• 31' Bladdon City Artur Bettencourt scores
• 43' Swarnham Israel Morales scores, assisted by Luis Pinto
• 47' Yellow card to Swarnham Lindomar Da Silva
• 66' Yellow card to Swarnham Stuart Mitchell
• 76' Yellow card to Swarnham Khadim Diakhate
• 88' Bladdon City Artur Bettencourt scores, assisted by Phillip Hopkins

Expected Goals (xG) Analysis: Bladdon City finished with 4.03 xG and four goals, a near-exact match between the quality of the chances and the scoreboard. Swarnham recorded 0.79 xG and scored once, a modest overperformance that gave the hosts a foothold just before the break but could not alter the wider arithmetic. The shot count tells the tactical story plainly: 19 attempts for Bladdon City, 14 on target, against three attempts from Swarnham, all three on target. Possession was much closer, at 53% to 47%, but the visitors turned their share into far more frequent danger. Equal pass accuracy and equal dribble totals did not produce equal attacking output; Bladdon City found the territory and volume that Swarnham could not match.

• No Swarnham players reached a recorded rating of 7.0 or higher.

For Swarnham, Israel Morales’s goal, assisted by Luis Pinto, was a genuine interruption to the visitors’ early control: it cut the score to 3-1 with two minutes left in the first half. But Bladdon City had already built a substantial lead, and the available figures offer little evidence of a sustained shift after the break. The three yellow cards for Swarnham, all after half-time, add a measure of the pressure the hosts faced; Bladdon City committed half as many fouls and received no cards.

The final 4-1 was emphatic without requiring any elaborate explanation. Bladdon City’s four goals closely tracked its 4.03 xG, while Bettencourt supplied the decisive finishing at both ends of the match: the first goal came in the third minute, and the last arrived in the 88th. Swarnham had an accurate but limited attack, with only three shots to show for its afternoon. The scoreline, in this case, is not being asked to carry more mystery than it can manage.