Phillips Is The One To Watch Says Butler

Kevin Phillips has already haunted Swansea City once this season with a quickfire double at the Liberty that gave Birmingham all the points last month.

And today the Swans are handed a chance of revenge when they try to put seven successive draws behind them and return to winning ways for the first time in over six weeks.

Winger Tom Butler though knows who the dangerman is for the Blues and has warned the Swans not to take Phillips lightly in the return fixture.

“Phillips only came on for 20 minutes against us last month but he ended up scoring two in five minutes and changed the game,” said Butler in today’s Wales on Sunday.

“Half the battle will be stopping him – you can’t let someone like him have the slightest half-chance.

“He drifts into the box and always seems to have space, and when the ball lands at his feet, he finishes time and time again.

“He’s a natural goalscorer, and he keeps proving that every season wherever he goes.

“I suppose that’s the difference between the top sides and the rest – they’ve got the money to pay top-class strikers like him.

“We know our defence are going to have to be even better than they were against Coventry on Boxing Day.

“Birmingham are a top side, they’ve got Premier League players and we’ll have to come fast out of the traps to have a chance

“But it’ll be no different – we’re just going to go and play the way we have been.

“Yes, it’s frustrating at the moment.

“We need to start converting our chances and, against Birmingham, we’ll have to be even more clinical because we’ll probably get fewer chances.

“If we were struggling and just happy with a draw, it’d be different.

“But we’re playing teams off the park so it’ll have to turn around eventually.

“And if we apply ourselves the way we have been, there’s no reason why we can’t beat any team in the league.

“The manager has said to us, ‘Don’t panic, it’ll come’.

“But maybe in the first half against Coventry we were a bit eager to try and thread that final ball, and we took an extra pass when we probably didn’t need to.

“We knew there wasn’t another game at home for three weeks, so we were really hoping to get a win.

“The last couple of games I’ve had a lot of the ball out wide, and it’s frustrating for me personally not to pick people out with a killer cross.

“But there’s no better feeling than playing the top sides and beating them.

“This is a great game for us – and if we go there and get a result, it would be fantastic.”