Around 16000 Swans fans will greet the teams when they emerge at around 7.40 tonight and for ninety minutes afterwards it threatens to be a cauldron of noise as the two teams go head to head for the first time in nine years in English competition.<\/p>\n
And Jones knows that his side need to shut out the noise from the stands as they seek a place in the last 16 of the competition.<\/p>\n
He told the Western Mail \u201cI have had abuse all my career and people think it affects you<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you can\u2019t deal with it then you don\u2019t continue as a professional sportsman.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you play at the highest level then the atmosphere is the best part. If you let it affect you then just get out because you won\u2019t perform to the best of your ability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will just deal with their fans the same way we do in any game that we get abuse. It doesn\u2019t affect us at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could have been a great atmosphere if we had more of our fans there. But we are only allowed 1,400.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will make their feelings known though and that will be great for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cI understand the importance of this game. I\u2019ve played and been involved in big derby games so I know what it\u2019s like with the bragging rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players will understand how important this is for the football club and our supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut performing is the hardest part and, if we are all too hyped up and the adrenaline is pumping, then normally you don\u2019t get the game everybody expects.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody wants to make a mistake in those circumstances and you tend to play safe football. We want to play our style of football though and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s the same for Swansea.<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly wouldn\u2019t expect us to go out and try to kill each other because we are not those kind of teams,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe don\u2019t have those sort of players in either camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think this game will have every- thing. We played Bristol City, which was a derby as well, and there was plenty of passion but good football as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not a kicking side and neither are Swansea. We won\u2019t just lump it forward and they don\u2019t do that either so it should have all the right ingredients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have played in some big games lately, play-offs and the like, and so have we. So you should really thrive on the atmosphere and the bigger the crowd, the more we hopefully rise to it and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s the same for Swansea.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good that both teams are doing well, There\u2019s a rivalry and everything else but it\u2019s good for football in this part of the world because we are the two highest teams in Wales and we have to try to perform in that manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly among my staff and I there is some sort of relationship with Swansea that should be good for Welsh football.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not at loggerheads with each other and we want the best for each other but, within that, we are competitive and we want to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Around 16000 Swans fans will greet the teams when they emerge at around 7.40 tonight and for ninety minutes afterwards it threatens to be a cauldron of noise as the two teams go head to head for the first time in nine years in English competition. And Jones knows that his side need to shut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}