-
Swansea v Blackburn
Swansea v Blackburn Sat 02 March 15:00
Our fans expectations will be high for this weekend’s home clash with Blackburn after that impressive showing in the win at Sunderland last time out.
Our home form has been very poor this season with just 4 wins from 17 games and the reason why we are struggling at the wrong end of the table. In order to rectify this we have to stop conceding those soft goals.
Blackburn are in a similar position to us in the table and last won an away match 8 games ago, but we have a habit of gifting wins to teams with poor away records, for example losing at home to Plymouth recently, it was their first away win of the season.
Blackburn with a new manager at the helm, John Eustace, in his 5 matches in charge they have so far produced 1 win and 3 draws.
On Wednesday night they took PL Newcastle to extra time and penalties in a hard fought encounter at Ewood Park in the FA Cup Quarter Finals, and have certainly improved under Eustace.
We expect a hard game but hope the Blackburn players are thoroughly worn out after their Cup adventures.
They have the Championship’s leading scorer in Sammie Szmodics on 18 goals (24 in all competitions) and he will take some marking if we are to get the much needed win.
The reverse fixture last October was a 0-1 win for the Swans, Cullen the scorer, after two goals were disallowed from Lowe and Rushworth made two fine saves from Szmodics.
-
March 1st - St David’s Day and Spring has sprung! That’s according to the meteorological calendar, and it ends last day of May. What’s the start of Spring got to do with football?
Well, Spring is especially important to Swans fans this year, besides us being relieved that winter is over, as by the end of it we should know if we are still a Championship club. It’s the 4th May to be exact, only 12 games away, our last game of the season at home to fellow strugglers Millwall.
Exaggerating, not really, we are right in the mix, just four points away.
That’s why it was huge relief all round after the away win at Sunderland. If we’d lost that game we would have been only one point
away from the third bottom team.
With QPR and Sheff Wed making a resurgence, the bottom ten clubs, from 40 points downwards, could be involved, Stoke on 35 points presently taking the third relegation spot.
The bottom ten include Swans and Blackburn, both on 39 points, and we clash this afternoon at the Swansea.com Stadium.
Our home form is poor with only 4 wins all season, but with the introduction of wingers Ronald and Placheta we look a much improved team. A win at home today would ease the pressure, let’s go for it!
-
Good news on the injury front boys.
Josh Key, Harrison Ashby, Bashir Humphreys, Azeem Abdulai and Jamal Lowe have all been back in training this week.
LW says four of the five are in contention for today’s game, but a match too soon for Key.
A boost at just the right time.
-
-
Swans unchanged
Swansea City: Carl Rushworth, Ben Cabango, Joe Allen, Matt Grimes (c), Jamie Paterson, Josh Tymon, Przemyslaw Placheta, Liam Cullen, Nathan Wood, Kyle Naughton, Ronald
Subs: Andy Fisher, Josh Key, Jay Fulton, Harry Darling, Jerry Yates, Jamal Lowe, Charlie Patino, Ollie Cooper, Bashir Humphreys
Blackburn: Aynsley Pears, Callum Brittain. Harry Pickering, Dominic Hyam (c), Sammie Szmodics, Sam Gallagher, Tyrhys Dolan, Scott Wharton, John Buckley, Andy Moran, Kyle McFadzean
Subs: Leo Wahlstedt, Connor O'Riordan, Zak Gilsenan, Arnor Sigurdsson, Yasin Ayari, Dilan Markanday, Jake Garrett, Ben Chrisene, Billy Koumetio
-
FT: Swansea 2 (Allen 7’, Paterson 19’) - Blackburn 1 (Szmodics 67’)
-
-
-
-
Game of two halves. We mostly dominated first-half but Eustace’s tactical changes at half-time swung the game in their favour. Naughton another impressive display but hero and villain, at fault for Szmodic’s goal but put in a great tackle to stop Gallagher scoring. Yates should have put the result beyond doubt when he had a great chance to score with his right foot but hesitated and tried to shift to his left foot and was blocked. Allen had ran out of steam after an impressive midfield display and was a big miss when he went off, Fulton off form, Patino poor and pulled out of tackles. All that mattered though at the end of the day was the three points and we got them.