Alan Sheehan and his Swansea squad head north later today for a fixture against Preston North End (7:45pm) at Deepdale, Lancashire. And his mind seems to be occupied with not only the next four games before the international break, but potentially having conversations about the permanent manager role.
Preston will present a different type of opposition to Blackburn Rovers, fresh off an excellent FA Cup win over Burnley getting them into the quarter finals, and a solid mid table position in the Championship. The Swans have Joe Allen back for squad inclusion after what Sheehan has described an excellent week of training. "You have to train properly every day, We’ve seen a lot of wonderful individual performances and some good team performances but it’s that consistent level of building that winning culture”
It seems Sheehan also has his eye on those who have not fared so well selection wise this season, "You always have to go and back it up, we want to go there and be positive and find a way to be really competitive in the game. It will be a different kind of game, different conditions” There is clearly a gradual attempt to change the mindset of this Swansea City squad by ‘building confidence and character’ That signifies that the squad needed a mental rebuild after a year of losing games, in some cases dreadfully.
News as well, and it won’t come as a surprise that Sheehan has been asked by director of football Richard Montague to take the helm for another four games. Those fixtures include tomorrow nights game plus home fixtures against Middlesbrough and Burnley with Watford away in-between.
That takes us up to Saturday 15th March giving the Swans two weeks off for those not on international duty. It all starts up again against Leeds United away on the 29th. By then we will be moving into the last five weeks of the season with just seven fixtures to go in April and May.
It’s definitely on top of the Swans to get at least three more wins and a few draws to feel safe. More build up and news later on the Indy.