Russell Martin keen to provide belated Christmas present for sold-out away end at Reading

Russell Martin wants Swansea City to deliver a belated Christmas present for a sold-out away end and put on a performance against Reading this evening (5.15pm).

The Swans and the Royals lock horns in front of the Sky Sports cameras at the Select Car Leasing Stadium with the two teams hungrily eyeing up the play-off spots with the season at its halfway point.

Recent meetings have come with no shortage of goals, with 13 in the last two contests alone.

The most recent of those saw the Swans prevail 3-2 in the reverse fixture in SA1, battling back superbly from 2-0 to snatch a memorable win under the lights.

More than 2,000 Swans fans will cheer on Martin’s men as they look to round off their travels for 2022 in fine fashion.

And head coach Martin is excited by the prospect of putting smiles on faces.

“We will have a brilliant following there, as we always do. The fans were great at Reading in the two games we had there last season,” he said.

“We know there are over 2,000 coming and that will generate its own energy for us. It’s on Sky as well, which gives us a chance to show everyone the team we want to be and the team we can be.

“We want to show that we can hurt teams, and we are excited by it.

“There is a lot of frustration in the building about where we are, because we feel we should be better off than we are.

“We have to keep using that as fuel to drive us on, and to help the young players continue to grow, and we will get to where we want to get to.

“We know Reading are a team of real experience who are battle hardened at this level, they work really hard out of possession and can cause problems as they have power and physicality at the top end of the pitch.

“They used that effectively against us on the counter in the home game, from there we made them work a lot without the ball and we were able to make the most of it.

“That was a tough game, and I am sure this will be no different.”