Preview | Swansea City v Birmingham City
Swansea City play their first home league match in over a month when they host Birmingham City at the Swansea.com Stadium later today (3pm kick-off).
In the last home league match, Russell Martin’s side put in a strong performance against Championship table-toppers Burnley which came on the back of an emphatic 4-0 win against Watford. They will be hoping for a similar performance against the Blues as they seek to boost their play-off hopes.
Visiting Birmingham have lost five consecutive league matches and will be hoping to turn their fortunes around when they travel to SA1.
Team news
Joe Allen picked up a knock in training this week and will miss Saturday’s fixture, and the game comes too soon for midfielder Liam Walsh who played his first minutes since recovering from an Achilles injury in a behind-closed-doors friendly last week.
But Russell Martin confirmed that Morgan Whittaker is in Swansea City’s squad for the first time since his return from a loan spell at Plymouth Argyle.
Pre-match views
Russell Martin: “We have a brilliant group of players that have got us in this position in the first place. They've given us everything they've got even though we’ve used the fewest players in the league.
“Ultimately, we believe we can still achieve something special because this group of players have got us into a great position, one we know could be even better.
“We have to give everything we’ve got to this group of players now.
“We also have a group of supporters who have been amazing, Matt Grimes spoke about that after the Sunderland game.
“We have a game on Saturday where everyone has a chance to unite behind this team and for us to win and make everyone feel a bit better, and for us to try and push for the play-off positions.”
John Eustace: “The fighting spirit was there on Tuesday, we really dug in despite the result. We showed some good grit and determination to keep the ball out of our net and we had the better chances on the night. It was disappointing to lose the tie but I was very pleased with a lot of the aspects of our game.
“Everyone is fighting for the cause, everyone is together. You can see the squad is together and whoever puts the shirt on, you can see that they are committed.”
Remember the last time?
Swansea City racked up a 15th clean sheet of the season as they played out a goalless draw when Birmingham City last visited the Swansea.com Stadium.
The hosts were unable to find a breakthrough and mark Kyle Naughton’s 250th appearance for the club with a win, as top scorer Joel Piroe went closest with a clever backheel, while Hannes Wolf spurned a great early opening by opting to pass when clean through on goal.
The visitors, meanwhile, wasted three gilt-edged chances as Juninho Bacuna, Tahith Chong and Maxime Colin all contrived to miss the target from close range.
It ensured a first goalless draw in SA1 since a draw with Millwall six months earlier.
Prime numbers
4 - No Championship team had more academy products in their starting XI than Swansea City on the previous weekend of Championship football. Ben Cabango, Joe Allen, Ollie Cooper and Liam Cullen meant 40% of the outfield 10 came through the ranks in SA1.
5 - In-form Liam Cullen has registered five goal involvements in his past six league appearances (four goals and an assist).
7.3 - WhoScored.com game Ollie Cooper an average score of 7.3 for his performances throughout January. It was enough to place him among the league's top performers and saw him earn a place in the Sky Sports Football team of the month.
