The Swans and Sunderland meet this afternoon at the Swansea.com stadium in a big game for both sides. (3pm) The Black Cats are desperate to return to winning ways with one victory in the last eight games whilst the Swans are slowly beginning to show their appetites for scoring goals and winning games.
Winning at home isn’t that easy for Swansea City, the last win was against Watford on November 5th, 1-0. In fact seven wins this season have included four away from home. Only Preston, Norwich and the aforementioned Watford are the home wins. Only two Saturday games have resulted in three points, the Watford fixture being a midweek affair. So, two Saturday home wins since the campaign started in August may well explain why the home attendances have fallen. There have been numerous games the Swans should have won, Cardiff, Stoke and Bristol City all ended up in draws at home, whilst Leeds and Millwall were injury time wins for the visitors.
The Swans have faired far better away from home, especially at Sheffield United and Burnley, games they lost but really should have taken something from. That’s why winning or losing every game by the odd goal (bar Preston) is such an annoying stat. Sheffield Wednesday away too. That was on a plate for Swansea City. You could even cite Luton away last weekend, two more points dropped. Winning away at Derby, Coventry, Oxford and Plymouth (obviously again by the odd goal) show what fine margins the Swans are playing with.
The difference between Swansea being a good team and a bad team fluctuates so much week to week fans vote with their feet when continual home games are either lost in injury time or drawn when nearly all of them should have been wins. Sunderland are suffering the same fate. Not winning games of late they should have won, and throwing away points in matches they had a foothold in.
Quite a few thousand tickets remain today for the game. The south and west sides of the Swansea.com screaming out for some takers. The south stand has seen quite vast swathes of emptiness this season. The club has to do something about this. As we have already suggested could next season include offers of big reductions on season tickets in those areas often unpopulated ? Some may move their seats to take up special offers but it will encourage the fans back to home games.
On the field today Swans head coach, Luke Williams is again upbeat, but still there’s no news on the contracts of Ben Cabango or Harry Darling, bar the obvious of course. The reason is that at this stage neither player has decided to take up the improved offers made since Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan were bought out a month ago. Joe Allen is out for three weeks, Luke confirmed this when he sat down with the media on Thursday. "I think we will have the same group as in midweek, there are no major concerns. A few sore bodies but we are pretty good. No-one is ready to come back yet, I will be looking at how people are over the course of next couple of days. But I am trying to make sure we have a squad and a group who feel they all have something to contribute, because they do. It’s important that everyone gets enough game time so no-one is coming into the team cold” That means Allen, Ollie Cooper, Josh Ginnelly and Sam Parker are not available. Eom is slowly working his way back into the weekly battles the Championship presents. He has shown some good points, but will be keen to get his first Swansea goal especially after that headed miss at Kenilworth Road last Saturday.
For Sunderland, Ian Proveda who signed from Leeds in the summer could sneak on to the bench, but Tommy Watson is out until next year. Abdul Samed (Salis) who is on loan from Lens is nearly there but again he has had a long injury. The Black Cats injury list is being referred to for the string of results, mostly draws that has seen a downturn in form. However, some are beginning to question head coach, Regis Le Bris but really todays visitors are still in fourth place in the Championship, and are going to be a huge test this afternoon. Jack Clarke (below) is now at Ipswich Town but not taking to the Premier League as much as he would like. His performances whilst at Sunderland were memorable at times, and they possibly miss that creativity this season.
Both clubs will have one eye on the transfer window coming up in a few weeks and we have some interesting news on one player tomorrow evening once this game and reporting has been concluded.
Catch up on our Sunderland pre match from Thursday below.
Team news to come on the Indy !