Phil Sumbler
It’s a well worn football saying that tells you “let’s see how they perform on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke.” Well, tonight is the chance to see just that from the Swans as they look to build on Saturday’s 2-1 win at Rotherham with another three points on the road.
It is definitely the time of year to be sacking managers with Stoke also having parted company with Alex Neil at the weekend following yet another defeat that sees them sat 20th in the Championship table, three points behind the Swans but with a far inferior goal difference.
Indeed, if results go against them during this midweek round of fixtures then they could even slip into the bottom three ahead of the weekend hence their decision to remove the manager just under a week after the Swans made that same decision.
We don’t yet have the replacement for Michael Duff in situ which means that Alan Sheehan will take charge of the Swans once again and it was clear after Saturday’s win what the three points meant to him. He may not feature highly in the running for the top job but he certainly will hope to be on the staff at some capacity when the final decision on the new manager is taken.
Jerry Yates was the match winner at the weekend and he will be hoping that his goal will be enough to see him recalled to the starting line up after he was left on the bench for the start of the Rotherham game.
As ever at this time of year the games come thick and fast and the Swans follow this up with two home games before Christmas with everyone aware that two more wins could easily see us head into Christmas in the relative comfort of mid table. That has to be an aim with seven points from nine an expectation at this stage.
Looking ahead – Swans skipper Matt Grimes: “The games come thick and fast at this time of year, and you have to take any opportunity you get to try and build momentum,” he said.
“We have had a good three points on Saturday, but we have to quickly move on and get ready for Tuesday.
“We need to crack on and do our jobs as players, turn up ready to work hard every day in training.
“That’s exactly what we did in the build up to the weekend, and we need to do it again.
Stoke caretaker manager Paul Gallagher: “The squad has massive potential and if you look back to the games we won against Sunderland, Leeds United and Middlesbrough, arguably three of the best teams in the league, I thought we were excellent in each of them before backing that up with the two draws,” Gallagher explained.
“We showed form and consistency but, after the international break, while we have played well in parts of the games and had opportunities to win the games – QPR, by example, where we go down to ten men but go 2-1 up before conceding late on – we haven’t managed to get as many points as we feel we should be on.
“However, we understand we now have to look forward to a big game on Tuesday, which we need to be ready for.”
The Swans hunt for that managerial replacement goes on and Chris Davies remains very much at the top of the list for that role. Clearly compensation needs to be agreed with Spurs for that to happen but the words coming out of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium are that they will not stand in his way should he want to come to Swansea, something which it is believed is very much of interest to him.
It now seems unlikely (but not impossible) that the role will be filled ahead of the weekend game but by the time Preston arrive at the Swansea.com Stadium on 22nd December it is still expected that a new manager will be in place giving him around ten days to see his squad in action before the transfer window opens.
For now though the focus is very much on that cold Tuesday night in Stoke and the next league game for the Swans this season. Can we produce another road victory? Time will tell…
Match Prediction: Stoke City 1-1 Swansea City – no second straight win from Sheehan but another point on which we can build going forward.
Despite Duff having been sacked nothing seemsvto have changed .Ladt Saturday a Duff team played in a Duff way and probably would have lost had Rotherham had 11 men .
The squad is badly imbalanced – no pace , no sharpness in mid-field, all of a sudden three left backs , a thirty four year old new signing who can play half a game.
Hope I’m wrong but i don’t think we’ll have the quality or the guts to go back up north and get a result.