Swans head north – can Blackburn Rovers be beaten?

It’s been a strange old season to date.   After 6 games the talk was all about relegation, after 11 we had turned it around and were heading upwards and now, just one week later, the doom has set in a little after back to back home defeats.

A strange week indeed in the life of Swansea City.   The defeat to Leicester was expected and there were many positives to be taken but on Tuesday night the side surrendered meekly at home to Watford in a display that was much more reminiscent of the early weeks of the season.

With all of that behind us it is difficult to know now what to expect when the Swans visit Ewood Park this afternoon but there is little doubt that the hope is we return with three points in our pockets and the optimism that existed before the international break back in situ.

Tuesday night was a stark reality for the squad and for all Michael Duff (and almost every football manager) berates the number of games they play this was only the second game in seventeen days for large numbers of the squad so tiredness should not be given as a reason.  The simple fact is Tuesday night was simply not good enough and should serve to be another wake up call similar to the one that everyone said we had after the Cardiff game.

Two games, two defeats have been met with very different reactions and Duff will be aware that defeats are tolerated at the club providing the performance is good and the side looks as if they want to compete.    Take the praise when it is due but meet the criticism with the same philosophy.

The Swans boss knows what he is expecting from today’s visitors “They will come after you with a full-court press, so we will need to be good with and without the ball.

“We will need to play well because you can’t go away from home in the Championship and get away with not playing well.

“We have played well in our last two away performances, and if we can do that again and be a bit more clinical with the ball, we will give ourselves a good chance.”

A Swans side is becoming increasingly difficult to predict given the level of injuries we seem to be experiencing but I think it is fair to say that we can expect changes for today’s fixture   Both Josh Key and Josh Tymon should be back in contention as should Ben Cabango be.   Jay Fulton did nothing on Tuesday night to convince anyone that he should get a run in the team but it almost also seems unfair to signal him out for a bad performance when he was far from alone.

Predicted line up – Rushworth, Key, Humphreys, Cabango, Darling, Patino, Grimes, Paterson, Cullen, Lowe, Yates.

My fear is that with Cabango fit, Duff may return to a three at the back formation which I do not believe works for us with the personnel that we have but let’s see what happens when the teams are announced at 2pm!

On the opposite side we have Jon Dahl Tomasson who wants to build on their midweek win at Millwall which saw them move to 11th place in the table bit we should also remember that there are only five points that separate Coventry (20th) and West Brom (6th) as the Championship continues to do what the Championship does!  The table could change dramatically this afternoon – for the Swans it needs to be for the better.

“I hope we can have a good performance again,” the Danish coach said to RoversTV when previewing the match this afternoon.

“I look forward to every match and the team is doing extremely well. This young team has progressed really, really well and are playing with more and more maturity.

“The boys have done an excellent job, they’re playing good football, they’re showing resilience when they need to do it and digging in when they need to do it

“Swansea want to play football, they are getting a lot of passes into the opponents’ box and have been doing that really well.

“They’re a good side at set pieces as well. It’s a game where we have a good chance to get a good performance if we do the right things.”

Match Prediction: Blackburn Rovers 1-1 Swansea City