Coventry City and Fulham – two big tests for Martin’s progression

The Swans will look to build on Monday night at West Brom with the visit of two promotion chasing sides to SA1 over the next few days when Coventry City and Fulham provide the opposition for a side still in transition.

Coventry are within sight of the play off positions at the moment having secured 10 points of the last 15 available and know that they arrive here with a need to continue that form as the Championship remains as tight in the top half of the table as it traditionally is at this time of the season.

Fulham, on the other hand, will arrive as clear leaders as the season heads into its final stretch and look almost certain to bounce back to the Premier League at the first time of asking – a free scoring side that have notched 82 league goals already this term.

Neither game will be easy but both games will give Russell Martin to benchmark his side’s progression during the course of the season.  The Swans did win at Coventry earlier this season but form has been – at best – patchy since that point but the Swans should head into the two games with an increased confidence secured by a good performance and excellent win at the Hawthorns on Monday night.

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Martin himself has spoken previously about aiming for a strong final third to the season and Monday night was a great part of that but these two home games will prove to be a different challenge given both sides arrive here in excellent form.

The two games are likely to see different Swans line ups to and not just due to the close proximity of the fixtures.   Fulham are a natural goalscoring threat throughout their side so we could easily see a more defensive line up than maybe we are used to at home with the likes of Ryan Bennett possibly playing a part in the game to try and counter that threat.  That could mean a rest for someone like Hannes Wolf and even maybe Piroe or Obafemi as Martin could look to sacrifice an attacking option to try and keep it tighter at the back.   Certainly in the early stages anyway.

The Swans certainly believed that Monday night was assisted by more than a week on the training pitch between games so it will also be interesting to see how we stack back up after just a few days with minimal rest in between games again.

One thing though we should remember is that, whilst both games will prove to be tough, we should not go into them with any fear and there should be no reason why we should not believe that we can win at least one – if not both of the games in question.   And if we did have six more points on the table come Wednesday morning what a statement of intent that could look like for next season already?