Preview | Coventry City v Swansea City
Swansea City and Coventry City will meet for the first time in just shy of a decade when they lock horns in tonight’s Championship clash at St Andrew’s.
The last time the Swans and Sky Blues faced each other in a first-team fixture was February 2011, with a Stephen Dobbie goal settling matters at the Ricoh Arena.
Steve Cooper and the current flock of Swans would surely accept a similar outcome tonight with the visitors back to winning ways following defeat to Huddersfield.
Coventry have had a challenging start to the new campaign, after securing promotion as League One champions, but have picked up creditable results against QPR and Rotherham and been a competitive proposition for all-comers so far on their return to the Championship.
With the hectic final few days of the transfer window – and the weekend fixtures that rapidly followed – now in the rearview mirror, this marks the start of the relentless grind of games which will take the campaign up until just prior to Christmas week.
With games coming thick and fast, not to mention available points, getting this run of midweek games under way with a win would be more then welcome for either side.
Team news
Swansea City are without Morgan Gibbs-White as the on-loan Wolves midfielder faces three months out with a foot problem.
The game comes too soon for George Byers as he recovers from a groin problem, but new arrivals Ryan Manning and Ryan Bennett could make their debuts following their deadline-day arrivals from QPR and Wolves respectively.
Pre-match views
Steve Cooper: “I’ve watched Coventry a lot over the international break, they play with a good style and formation.
“They have shown they are more than able to compete at this level, and they can cause damage to sides with how they play.
“But, after defeat, whoever we play next, it is about us getting back to being us.
“Large parts of the performance against Huddersfield were good. But you want to perform well, create and take chances and keep the ball out of your net. We did not do that well enough on the weekend.
“We look at ourselves and want to make sure we get back on a winning run.”
Mark Robins: “I think we are clearly a team that’s been promoted from League One that’s trying to find our feet and taking a bit too long to do that during games.
“But we have got to remember who we are playing against and the level we have come in to is a huge step up.
“I just want us to go and show the real face of the team because they are good.”
Remember the last time?
Swansea City climbed to second in the Championship table as substitute Stephen Dobbie struck a late winner in their last away meeting against Coventry in February 2011.
The Scot had only been on the field four minutes when he hooked a Nathan Dyer cross over Kieren Westwood to seal all three points for Brendan Rodgers’ side.
Dobbie had already hit the post prior to that, with Luke Moore and Scott Sinclair also managing to strike the woodwork as they attempted to turn in the rebound.
At the other end Dorus de Vries was in fine form, as he made excellent saves to deny David Bell, Marlon King and Lukas Jutkiewicz.
Prime numbers
9 – Swansea can extend their unbeaten away run to nine league games by avoiding defeat tonight.
39 – Swansea City last lost to Coventry City almost exactly 39 years ago on October 24, 1981, with Mark Hateley scoring a brace for the Sky Blues in a 3-1 win.
Today's virtual mascots
Tonight we welcome our virtual mascots, Ceejay Lloyd and Enlli Thomas!
Ceejay is aged 6 from Swansea. Ceejay plays football for his school football team and his favourite player is Andre Ayew.
Enlli is 7 years old and is from Hirwaun and her favourite player is Connor Roberts.
