The former Swansea City defender will bring his Coventry side to the Liberty Stadium on Boxing Day as he looks to get within a point of the side he supported as a lad.<\/p>\n
It will be the second time he has locked horns with the Swans this season and Coleman is determined to see his side get just their sixth clean sheet of the season at the home of the division’s draw specialists.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Western Mail, Coleman said \u201cIt was a big surprise when I saw the fixture list<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be nice to have the chance to see my parents but we are not going down there for the festivities \u2013 this is our job.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I was hoping for Wolves or Derby, somebody close like that, but you have to take what you are given.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be in for training on Christmas Day and then leaving to get down there at 8.30-9pm, ready to go to work the next day.<\/p>\n
\u201cSwansea are the team I supported as a boy \u2013 I have never supported anyone else<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it is a cliche, but they have always been the first result I look for.<\/p>\n
\u201cI only played against them twice, and I took Fulham there for Alan Curtis\u2019 testimonial.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a great stadium and it is always lovely to go back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy links with Swansea will always be strong, but this is a game that we badly need to win. When we play them they will just be another team for me, they will not be the team I support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will be the latest team who I want to take three points from \u2013 and just another obstacle in my way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went down there for the first time when I was six,\u201d said Coleman, capped 32 times by Wales.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was standing there when John Toshack was manager and took us up through the divisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when you have experienced that side of it and you then get the opportunity to play, it becomes extra special.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is every supporter\u2019s dream and I was lucky enough to get the chance to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember when I was there you couldn\u2019t say money was tight because there wasn\u2019t any \u2013 sometimes we didn\u2019t have enough kit to train in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was incredible, but I think times like that do tend to pull people together.<\/p>\n
\u201cSwansea are doing very, very well,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, they have the brightest young manager outside the Premier League.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like the way Roberto has got his side playing football. He has got that foreign edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way they pass it and the formation they play, he is doing things the right way and under him things are looking very good for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsk anyone who has faced them this season and they will vouch for what a good side they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no pressure on Swansea to do anything this season other than to stay in the league, so sometimes you can play with a bit more of a swagger, a bit more confidence in that situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of sides have the pressure of getting into the play-offs or getting promoted, but that is not there for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they have come up with a bit of momentum \u2013 why shouldn\u2019t they reach the play-offs?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is always a surprise in this division.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 compared to last year when I had sleepless nights and was biting my nails because we were in trouble, I think we have come on.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we are caught in that little space at the minute where we are thinking, \u2018maybe, maybe\u2019, but it is not quite happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got to get to the next stage where we know it is going to happen for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve scored four goals in two home games but we\u2019ve only got two points to show for it \u2013 and that\u2019s not good enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the start of the season I could point the finger at our strikers because they were not scoring goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now we\u2019re not keeping clean sheets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that if we go down to Swansea and keep a clean sheet, we have got a great chance of winning.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we have only got five in 24 games and that is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former Swansea City defender will bring his Coventry side to the Liberty Stadium on Boxing Day as he looks to get within a point of the side he supported as a lad. It will be the second time he has locked horns with the Swans this season and Coleman is determined to see his […]<\/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-15835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15835","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=15835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}