Swansea City manager Russell Martin is focussed on his teams first game back after the World Cup break and for him they won’t come any bigger than Norwich City at the swansea.com next Saturday. Martin played over three hundred games for the canaries.

In 2015 Russell Martin captained Norwich to Wembley glory and a return to the premier league, he was very much a fixture during the clubs yo yo years. With Dean Smith now Norwich manager taking his team for warm weather training in Tampa, USA, the swans have opted for a slightly cheaper route by staying and training at Heriot Watt University - at the Oriam National Sports Performance Centre, pictured below.

That said the colder climate and the forthcoming winter may well be easier to handle after extended training sessions and two hard games against Hearts and Dundee United in Scotland. Martin has been pleased with how the eight days away are going. “I think this is a really good week for us ahead of the Norwich game next week. We will look back at this as an important part of the process and a chance to use the break wisely. It’s been helpful and we want to come out of it in a better position than we started, and these games will help with that. We had a good week of training last week, and we were really pleased with the mentality the lads showed after a short break.They have come back with a willingness and appetite to work seriously hard, and we have been through a really honest analysis of where we are at and the season so far. We have looked at what has been good, what has not been so good and what we want and need to improve on. We have had lots of good feedback from the group when we have talked about those elements and I feel we are all in agreement. That has fed nicely into this week and the two games we have as we look to implement some stuff we have been working on.”

The last seven meetings between the two sides have gone in Norwich City’s favour by four games to three. Since the first meeting in 1920 the swans have won twenty three matches to Norwich City’s twenty four, with ten being drawn. Back in December 2012 Norwich scraped a 3-4 win at the Liberty as it was then, that’s now ten years ago, and Michael Laudrup was manager. That weekend Michu went top of the Premier League goalscoring charts with twelve goals from just twenty shots.

Swans fans will look longingly at that side, the match facts are below.

In fact the first three Premier League meetings between the swans and canaries went to the east anglian club. Then the swans began to redress the balance losing only one of the next five Premier League matches. Russell Martin has scored against the swans as well, playing for Norwich in 2011, in fact he payed a number of times for the canaries against the club he now manages.

Did you know ?
In 2018 Russell Martin had his contract terminated (mutually) at Norwich City and he moved to Walsall as player coach ? When he took over Daniel Farke wasn’t a huge fan of Russell and wanted him out on loan to Glasgow Rangers. While that was being sorted out Martin was told to train with the clubs under 23 side. His captaincy was withdrawn. Russell was only at Walsall for around thirteen weeks and then left. Speaking at the time (2019) “The decision to leave Walsall is purely for family reasons. I haven’t been seeing my kids enough since the move and they are struggling with that. I need to be with my family more. There has been a lot of change in my life in such a short space of time and I need to put them first and spend a bit more time with my wife and kids. I have loved working with the lads, they are a fantastic group. I have loved working with the manager as well, he has been brilliant. Everyone at the club has been great and I have really, really enjoyed my time here. It hasn’t gone quite how we would have liked but I honestly believe the lads are getting there. I hope I have added some value at some point along the way to the players on and off the pitch. After a chat with the manager, he agrees that I need to put my family first.”

That departure led him to be appointed as manager at MK Dons, and of course we all know the rest. As much as his departure from Norwich City must have hurt him we are pretty certain that he is secretly relishing this match and can’t wait to put one over his old club.

Swansea City v Norwich City kicks off at 3pm next Saturday. December 10th 2022

Photographs licensed from Reuters & Open Source

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