The players rest will benefit the performance against Cardiff City

Whilst all the eyes of a nation last night was on the Cardiff City Stadium as Wales took one step further towards getting that elusive World Cup finals spot, attention in SA1 is never far away from a certain game a week tomorrow where the Swans and Cardiff go head to head and we face into our own chance of footballing history.

Yet again we find ourselves on the verge of completing a league double – something that neither side in the South Wales divide has managed in more than 100 years of the fixture.

Still an incredible stat and one that Russell Martin will want to put to bed next weekend and write his team’s name into the history books for the fixture and also ensure that our league position remains above theirs going into the very closing weeks of the season.

For neither team has the season progressed as we would have hoped and the Swans boss has often talked about the tiredness of his squad due to fixture pile up as a result of a normal Championship programme but also reflective of the enforced postponement of games before Christmas due to a rapid rise across the country of Covid-19 cases.

But after a manic run of games that stretches back to early January, the Swans will have had – international call ups aside two weeks to work together on the training pitch for the big derby game something which Russell Martin believes will benefit us greatly next weekend as we take that – hopeful – historic step.

ne of the things I have said to the players since the Birmingham game. Whenever we have had any time together to work, that has always been reflected in the performance after that,” Martin told the Swans official website.

“We have to make sure that is repeated, and we do the same again this time.

“We obviously have a few guys who are away with their international teams, which is great for them, but the rest remain here and it’s about finding that balance between recovery after a busy period and getting to work.

“It’s definitely a time to get that work in, we have tried to maximise every opportunity we have had this season.

“We look to make the most of any time we have, and it is the same again now.”