Cyrus Christie is available to Liam Rosenior this afternoon, and as a Swansea old boy you can be sure he will make an impact. Talking yesterday Rosenior was eager to play this game down even though his side are odds on favourites.
Liam spoke of his respect for Swansea City, head coach Luke Williams and his admiration for his work at Notts County. "Luke is an outstanding coach. He fits Swansea’s personality for what they want to see in a team and I think he will do an outstanding job there; it will be a difficult game” There are numerous danger men today, new signing Jaden Philogene has a word or two for his new boss as well. "Yeah, it was one hundred per cent the perfect move. As soon as the season finishes, we can be there next season. (premier league) My mind is on Hull City right now. This with regards to how soon he can be playing in the top flight, and with the Tigers, particularly given the January recruitment, bringing in the likes of Fabio Carvalho, Ryan Giles and Anass Zaroury. The players we brought in, they're top players. Even in their first game, they looked like they've been with us for a long time. Even in training, they gelled with us straight away. The chemistry came with all of us after one session and now we know how to play with each other. We're in a good place, everyone knows we're doing well. For players like that to want to come here, we must be doing something right."
ThenTigers have won their last two games whereas the Swans have struggled to take their clear cut chances that would mean victory in their games. With Jerry Yates off form we could expect to see Liam Cullen starting later. It is also anticipated that two of the three January signings could feature from the off too. Ronald is a guaranteed starter today though. The Swans have to make this weeks training and positivity from Luke Williams pay off. On the less than positive side Swans fans aren’t expecting anything today, and neither from Tuesdays game at home to Leeds, followed by another home fixture against Ipswich the following Saturday. After the Sunderland away game a week later there comes some positivity of three points from certain games. But surely the Swans can take some points over the next four fixtures ?
Williams stated yesterday, "We need to create the positive actions we had in the last games, and make sure we convert those. We also have to concentrate and focus all the time because we have given up goals we did not need to. So, we have to be focused throughout the game and take our chances. The more we work on the training pitch the more chance we have of making those things a reality.” It’s not as if the Swans are a bad side, they continue to dominate most games, they create a whole load of chances which in the main have seen some catastrophic finishing. It’s those ‘positive actions as the Swans head coach calls them that need a ‘positive’ ending.
We covered the injury news yesterday evening. That report is below.
A more than reasonable number of Jacks are attending this game, and after some of the humiliations on the road starting Boxing Day at Southampton you have to admire their support for our team. For these games coming up, in fact every game we have to get behind the Swans, our personal displeasure for those ninety minutes or so can be forgotten. The only thing we picked up on in the week was Luke talking about repetitive training this and last week. It seems he wants a good product from immersing the players into routines they continually practice in training. Possibly something he did at Notts County ? It’s only if these drills come off on the pitch will the players see the positive side of this type of training.
Either way the Swans have a big job on this afternoon, don’t concede early has to be the mantra pre match, and let’s see where the weeks work can take us.
Team news later.