Fede to miss two more games

Federico Fernandez will miss Swansea City’s next two matches following the death of his father.

Fernandez flew back to his native Argentina over the weekend to be with his family after the sad news came through ahead of the Swans’ game against Bournemouth.

And boss Paul Clement has revealed that Fernandez will also be absent for Wednesday’s trip to Chelsea as well as next Saturday’s game at Stoke.

“Fede has returned home after the very sad news about his father,” said Clement.

“He will not be back here until the weekend so he will miss Chelsea as well as the Stoke fixture.

“He will be back training with us next week leading into the West Brom game.”

Fernandez contacted Clement last Saturday morning to tell him about his father’s passing.

Clement in turn got in touch with Mike van der Hoorn to inform him that he would be starting against Bournemouth – and the Dutchman has won praise from his manager.

“I wanted to give Mike that extra bit of notice so he could prepare himself mentally,” Clement explained.

“And I thought Mike had a good game. He stepped in and did well. He is able to do that because he trains very hard every day.

“He is focused. That’s what being a professional is. You never know when your opportunity will come and you have to be ready.

“Mike battled hard, he played well and he also produced a crunching tackle right in front of me, which was good to see.”

The Swans are a little short on central defensive options as Kyle Bartley remains on the sidelines due to a knee problem.

Other than that, they have a clean bill of health for the Chelsea game, but on-loan Blues striker Tammy Abraham will be missing as he is not allowed to face his parent club.

Bartley, meantime, hopes to rejoin team training at some point in the next couple of weeks.