Swansea City’s hardest challenge at home for some time kicks off at 7.45pm tonight at the swansea.com stadium. Fulham are the visitors a club who will almost certainly hit over one hundred goals this season, and are favourites to return to the premier league.
Swansea are a completely different story this season, the patience and time given to Russell Martin hasn’t pleased everyone, but recent performances have given the Jack Army some hope. Talk of relegation has gone, and the swans are now scoring goals, especially at home, and taking their chances. That all said nobody really expects Swansea to take anything from tonight’s game, let alone win it. That gives Russell Martin a bit of a free hit as we reported this morning. However, he does believe there’s something for his side to be taken from the game.
The swans boss is still very positive though. "With the two results we've had, there will be no expectations outside this building to go and get a result against Fulham because of the form they're in, the team they are and the quality they possess. But it's a brilliant opportunity for the guys to really show where they're at and how good they can be. I loved our performance there earlier on in the season. I didn't love the result. I was probably more happy with the performance than I am today, but if we can replicate that and play with that intensity, we'll have a real chance of hopefully surprising a few people."
Although Martin has a few selection issues, Nathanael Ogbeta is out and still to be seen in a white shirt, Hannes Wolf is also out with Covid and Cyrus Christie can’t play due to the fact Fulham are his parent club. You would have thought that the swans boss would look to experience against such a well drilled side like Fulham. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case for Ryan Bennett. Speaking about the defender on the weekend he said. "He's fine, Fin Burns came out of the team, and I thought it was really unfair out of the starting XI and then out of the squad because Fin did great in his last two games. "Bristol City, he was excellent on his debut. Sheffield United, he was one of the few players to emerge with some credit. How brave he remained throughout the whole game for an 18-year-old kid. Didn't go under at all."So we really love Fin, but with Naughts coming back it's difficult because the most consistent back three has been the back three that played today. It's the back three we've had the best record with. So there was a temptation to put Ryan Manning up the pitch because it would have been a more natural fit maybe, but then we lose balance at the back. And whenever we've done that, even when Ryan [Manning] has brought us a lot in the final third, it's affected us. So the decision was to try and remain consistent with that one. But Benno's fit. He's in the squad. He's training well. He's been no problem at all and he's been really good with the likes of Fin Burns when he's not involved and he understands”
Ryan Bennett, struggling to get a game for the swans
This game will be a real test tonight for swans fans to compare the Russell Martin revolution to that of Marco Silva’s seemingly unstoppable football machine. And nobody apart from those inside the building at SA1 believes the swans will take anything from the game tonight. But this is Swansea, and we know things don’t always go as expected.