Swansea City : A great opportunity to start afresh for Duff
Saturday, 2nd Dec 2023 08:30 by Liam Walters

The Swans have an increased injury list. Nathan Wood, Joe Allen, Harrison Ashby, Josh Ginnelly, Mykola Kukharevych are all out, oh, and Kristian Pedersen as well by all accounts. Other than that we are told by the Swans head coach, Michael Duff he has basically what he had on Wednesday night at Leeds.

Duff will carefully manage the introduction in to the team of Liam Walsh and Jannick Bolasie (below) The latter should feature but not from the start. Charlie Patino is fit and Josh Key navigated Wednesdays game okay, however he looked out on his feet at the end of the game.

Kristian Fletcher, on loan / trial / holiday from DC Utd looks destined not to play for the first team this time around. Majority owner, Jason Levien has stated that already. Any other club would have snapped him up and offered him a professional contract by now. Levien : “I think it’s fantastic that Kristian is having the success he’s having and the experience he’s having. We want him playing first-team soccer or football to get that experience as well. So right now we expect that he’ll be back with D.C. United. We’re going to talk to him and both clubs about that, figure out what’s the best path for his development. But I think with a new coach coming into D.C. and new leadership in soccer operations, I think it’s a great opportunity for Kristian.”

Crazy stuff. The guy has scored six goals in his last two U21 games. And wants to sign for the Swans.

This could be seen as the start of a form of resurgence for Duff and the Swans. It’s been a tricky six weeks that doesn’t look good results wise. Their last win came on the 4th October, that excellent Wednesday night victory over Norwich City. In fact here’s a stat, the last time the Swans won at home on a Saturday this season was against Sheffield Wednesday on the 23rd September. And get this - that’s the only Saturday afternoon win at the Swansea.Com all season. With one win in the last six games there has to be some form of a turnaround. It almost feels like Duff is heading towards another cliff edge regards his future at the club. It hasn’t been good enough, and with clubs below picking up wins, QPR grafted out another win last night against Preston, that’s back to back, and the Swans are teetering on the brink of a relegation scrap.

There is no need to panic just yet, there are some less stressful games coming, because this side cannot press for the whole game and deteriorates dramatically at times. In the words of Michael Duff yesterday “We don’t have that profile of player” Well, January is next month. But surely that’s a bit of a cop out ?

The Swans visitors today have Kian Harratt ruled out until the new year. Manager, Darren Moore (below) on this said yesterday. “We’re going to rule him out (of the game against Swansea City), he’s going to be out for some time. He sustained the injury against Southampton, so he’s one definitely that will not play any football for the rest of this year, not season. He’s a long-term injury now.

“I’ll just keep it as a muscle injury sustained in the game, and he’s going to be out for some time. He won’t play this side of this year now. We look forward to his return at some point in the New Year.” However Moore does have Danny Ward back, he was meant to return in the Southampton match proper, but came on in midweek when the Terriers beat Sunderland away. They are having some form of resurgence for sure and will be dangerous opponents today. Moore kept his cards close to his chest on other injuries. “We’ve got a training session after this, which we’re able to check on one or two,” the manager said. “I can only say hopefully (that any injured players will be able to return), but at the moment we’ve got a training session, so we’ll see how the group responds, and then we’ll go from there.”

It’s a big game for both managers who are under pressure, despite Moor slowly turning things round. He has been asked on numerous times this season ‘Does he know what he is doing’ Well, something will give today, and we just hope and pray it’s a Swansea home win. If it is it will only their second Saturday win all season.

And yes, it is December.

Swansea City v Huddersfield Town kicks off at 3pm this afternoon at the Swansea.Com Stadium.