Swansea City take on what everyone expected to be the league leaders today at the Liberty but a surprise 3-0 defeat at Derby on Tuesday night changed that and they come to South Wales now in 2nd place in the league.
However, with the early Liberty kick off and leaders West Brom in FA Cup action, the Toon army have the chance to move back to the top today by avoiding defeat against an 8 match unbeaten Swansea side.
And they have warned the Swans that defeat is not the start of a slippery slope down the division and that they will bounce back immediately.
“What happened at Derby is now history,” manager Chris Hughton told the Western Mail.
“It was disappointing to lose by the margin we did, but the best way to deal with that is to put it behind us by putting in a better performance.
“We have a tough game against Swansea next and that is what we are focused on.
“They are in very good form and what we know about them is they do not change their style of play whether they are at home or away.
“They do not score many goals – but they do not concede many either. Paulo has continued the good work of Roberto Martinez.”
Defender Danny Simpson added "The manager and the staff don’t need to tell us where we went wrong – we knew ourselves.
“We looked at each other in the dressing room and we knew we had got it wrong.
“We’ve been here before though, against Scunthorpe, and we had a chat back then in the dressing rooms at Glanford Park.
“After that we said we’d go on an unbeaten run until Christmas and that’s what happened. We did even better, going all the way to February. Our mentality is now the same and we must do the same until the end of May.
“If we go on an unbeaten run of 15 games again we will probably get promoted.
“So we start again. We’ve done well up to now and, although Derby was disappointing, we can turn it round with another unbeaten run.”
