Today at 12.30pm is yet another derby game between Swansea City and Cardiff City. The previous encounter ended 1-1 in August at the Swansea.com, that game was thrown away by the Swans and they should have won it easily.
This morning, even if Ben Cabango and Harry Darling make the cut is a Swansea side at a low ebb away from home. Without them Cardiff will be very firm favourites. And they should be, maybe today we will see the Swans get some of the luck the Bluebirds had in August. This fixture is hard to predict, albeit that the Swans have won eight of the last twelve, but really that gives us no clues as to what will happen this afternoon.
What we do know is that both Cabango and Darling trained yesterday, but to what extent and to what excess we don’t know. We can only keep our fingers crossed that all is well. What we witnessed last weekend against Southampton, albeit with a keeper who won’t start in Jon McGloughlin was absurd. It clearly emphasised again the weakness in this Swansea squad. I’m really sorry but we have to come up with alternatives to Cyrus Christie and Kyle Naughton. It’s hard yes, but going with those two into a derby game is handing the three points to the opposition. We have to be firm on this, and more importantly so does Swans head coach, Luke Williams.
But when we look at his options they are extremely limited.
Guaranteed starters have to be Josh Tymon and Josh Key and they have to be on top form for this one. Vigouroux will start in goal, then we have the centre back issue. In midfield there will be Franco and Matt Grimes (below) possibly Joe Allen with Liam Cullen who loves a derby, he will play ahead of them. Don’t discount Jay Fulton. Josh Ginnelly we think will be on the bench. Then we have the dilemma, we expect Ronald to start with Eom but where do Florian Bianchin, Zan Vipotnik and Myles Peart-Harris play ? The potential options are running out. There has been no transfers into the club this January, so it’s the same as we have seen for most of the season.
Filip Lissah is making progress as is Oli Cooper who has seen some training this week, but really he won’t be ready and shouldn’t be rushed. As Luke Williams stated Sam Parker is very close and training well, he will be a first team player very soon, we are not sure of the risk, but again he won’t be pressurised to play. On additional players from the U21, Kyrell Wilson bagged another yesterday afternoon at Peterborough in a 2-1 win. Woodward got the other goal. So, once again Wilson has been ignored for a first team call up. We are glad news is limited and we haven’t bothered at all this week to get any information, why would we ? This isn’t something any Swans website should be talking about. We did get news yesterday afternoon that Harry Darling and Ben Cabango were in training, like you we needed reassurances that at least there was a chance.
Cardiff City have little to concern them leading up to this fixture. If there’s ever a good time to take on the Swans it will be today. It’s just a matter of if they have the bottle. Something which is lacking at every Welsh derby I’ve attended.
If you missed Luke Williams pre match press interview it is below.
Safe travel to all Swans fans today, and remember we all follow the same club, but sometimes have differing opinions. Team news to follow.