The traditional Saturday 3pm kick off hasn’t affected the Swans that much so far this season as we look towards tomorrow’s away game against Coventry City. The Sky Blues haven’t beaten the Swans at home since October 1981, that’s seventeen games. And even more damning they haven’t won away in Swansea since January 1950 !
Thanks to Gwyn Davies (@GwynStato) on X, a constant supporter of our website for which we are forever grateful, we have some in-depth stats as well. Let’s first look at that game in 1981. Although registered in some places as a Friday evening kick off that isn’t right. It was a normal Saturday with a 3pm start. That day Coventry took a 3-0 lead before Alan Curtis pulled one back for the Swans. Many Coventry followers will recall the player who scored two that day, Mark Hateley, he scored some twenty five goals in ninety three games for the Sky Blues. They were his first club as a seventeen year old. Lesser known, but the other goalscorer was Dutchman Rudi Kaiser. He only spent a season with the Sky Blues. Fourteen thousand was the official attendance that day with the Swans flying high in the league they brought a big support to the game, despite the news of the week being the Sky Blues highest ticket pricing in the top flight.
The season the Swans went down 1982/83, we saw out a 0-0 draw at Highfield Road. The league table below tells the story of that time. It led to a number of years of discomfort.
Let’s now have a look at the man in the middle, James Linnington. Our Gwyn has compiled a few stats which can be seen below.
We can report no injuries from last weekends hard fought 1-0 victory over Norwich City. Mark Robins the Coventry City manager made seven changes to his team for Wednesday’s extremely agonising last minute defeat to Tottenham in the league cup. He was obviously keeping an eye on this game and to kick start the Sky Blues season.
Surprisingly Coventry haven’t made a loan signing this summer, the clubs strategy determined by the clubs hierarchy somewhat is to buy in and develop their own. Robins explains, "But if you have good loan players from top clubs then they can make a difference, as they have done in the past, and obviously we have converted some of them into permanents, namely Callum O’Hare being one of them. Ben Sheaf was another, as was Viktor Gyokeres, so we have used it pretty well in the past”
He doesn’t sound overly keen on this move by the club, and some fans believe this has left them rather short in certain areas. As Robins stated they’ve had some real successes in the loan market. Viktor Gyokeres though made the club absolute millions. What a difference a season or two makes when there confidence placed upon you.
We will cover Robins press meeting as soon as we get it.
A little bit of controversy it now seems due to our report yesterday on ‘the truth’ behind Harry Darling and his contract talks.
⚽️ Thats here —> Luke states there have been talks
People really do need to understand that this fanboy attitude to players who really, at the end of it all are just out for big bucks as quickly as they can is a bit immature. However, we will keep on reporting what we know, and will never justify our stance on any matter, especially on Swansea City.
More later.