They do say that in football a week can make a huge difference and that is certainly the case for Steve Cooper who, just seven days after seeing his side surrender against Newport, watched them win away on the opening day of the season at Preston.

Morgan Gibbs-White’s goal in the second half proved to be the only goal of the game but the Swans were comfortable for large periods of what was a professional performance if not ever reaching the entertaining level.

Gibbs-White poked home from close range after man of the match Jake Bidwell’s cross into the area to start the Swans league campaign with a win on the road – something badly needed after the nature of defeat at Newport.

And Cooper was, as you would imagine, delighted when speaking after the game at the start made by his side who welcomed back Marc Guehi, Ban Cabango and Connor Roberts into the starting line up.

It is definitely a great start, any result you get here is a good one

It is a really tough place to come as you could see from the record they had here last season. They have pretty much the same squad and the same team and it was tough.

But I thought our performance was good, in the first half we got into some really good positions and did not capitalise on creating that real chance on goal.

We were getting in down the sides, we looked a threat and we kept that going.

Jake Bidwell has scored and it should have stood, we have seen it back, it was not offside and would have been a fantastic goal. – Steve Cooper

By Phil Sumbler

Been watching the Swans since the very late 1970s and running the Planet Swans website (in all its current and previous guises since the summer of 2001 As it stood JackArmy.net was right at the forefront of some of the activity against Tony Petty back in 2001, breaking many of the stories of the day as fans stood against the actions where the local media failed. Was involved with the Swans Supporters Trust from 2005, for the large part as Chairman before standing down in the summer of 2020.