Preview | Swansea City v Sunderland
Swansea City will hope to build on victory at Blackburn and return to winning ways at home when they host Sunderland at the Swansea.com Stadium on Saturday (3pm kick-off).
A good performance at Ewood Park secured a third-consecutive victory on the road last time out, as Liam Cullen’s first-half strike sealed three points for the Swans.
It marked their fifth win in seven outings. However, those two defeats have come at home and Michael Duff’s side will be hoping to put that right this afternoon.
They face a tough test in visitors Sunderland. The Black Cats currently sit eighth, just one point outside the play-off places. Having lost three on the bounce in October, they got back to winning ways with a 3-1 home victory against Norwich last weekend.
TEAM NEWS
Swansea City head coach Michael Duff expects to have the same group of players to select from for Saturday’s home meeting with Sunderland.
The Swans boss expects full-back Josh Key to return after the upcoming international on the back of the knock he sustained against Leicester.
Striker Mykola Kuharevich, meanwhile, is set for a longer lay-off, with the Swans waiting for the results of a scan on a knee injury.
Josh Ginnelly, Joe Allen, Nathan Wood and Azeem Abdulai remain on the sidelines.
PRE-MATCH VIEWS
Michael Duff: “Sunderland are a really good team, they are young, they have loads of energy and lots of quality in wide areas.
“They can hurt you in lots of ways. They were in the play-offs last year and have an experienced manager.
“We are going to have to be bang at it, but we have proved we can hurt other teams in a number of recent performances."
Tony Mowbray: "I think Swansea's philosophy is they want to play with the ball.
“The challenge is to be organised, and have a game plan as best you can. But, as I moaned a bit last week with the weather, it was really difficult to prepare for the game.
“We have done a lot of video work and we’ll go to Swansea and see how we get on.”
MEET THE OFFICIALS
Robert Madley will be the man in charge when Swansea City host Sunderland at the Swansea.com Stadium on Saturday (3pm kick-off).
This will be the second time the west Yorkshire official – who has taken charge of more than 90 Premier League games – has overseen a Swans match this term.
REMEMBER THE LAST TIME?
Ollie Cooper’s first league goal for Swansea City and a second of the season for centre-back Harry Darling gave them all three points in the last time the Swans hosted Sunderland at the Swansea.com Stadium.
The home side started the first half on the front foot and had already created a number of good chances before Cooper gave them the lead in the 13th minute.
It was a dominant half for the home side who played the ball around with fluency and purpose, restricting the visitors to half-chances before Darling's goal just prior to the interval doubled the advantage heading into the break.
The second half was a different beast and the visitors hit back early when Jack Clarke fired just inside the far post. Both sides had further chances in an engrossing contest, but the Swans held firm to claim a fourth-consecutive win.
PRIME NUMBERS
2 - Two of Ollie Cooper’s eight Swansea goals have come against Sunderland, with the midfielder netting in both wins against the Black Cats last season.
12 - Swansea have lost just one of their last 12 meetings with Sunderland, that solitary defeat coming in January 2016.