Ryan Manning | Home advantage important for upcoming games

Swansea City wing-back Ryan Manning is hoping home comforts will play their part as four of the Swans next six Championship matches will be played in SA1.

Russell Martin’s side host Birmingham City, Blackpool, Stoke City and Rotherham United in February and Manning is hoping to make the most of the opportunity presented by a run of games at the Swansea.com Stadium.

Manning also believes that less time on the road will be beneficial for the Swans, following a challenging period where they racked up 1,214 miles in just 13 days last month.

“I think having home games makes a massive difference for us because the travel is quite hard,” he said.

“For a lot of away games this season, we’ve been leaving on a Thursday so the away travel can take its toll.

“We do clock up the miles, but I think Swansea is a bit out of the way for other teams in the league, and you do hope that that takes its toll on some of the other teams, especially those around the middle of Britain who aren’t used to travelling more than two or three hours.

“All of these little things, we have to try to take advantage of when we’re home and hopefully we could put together a run of two or three results in the next six and we can get into the play-offs.

“This run of home games is an opportunity we have to maximise, and make the most of because we’re not far off it.

“If we can put a little run together like we did around October, then that will make a massive difference to us.”

The Ireland international also backed up the words of Matt Grimes who praised the Jack Army’s support after the Swans victory at Sunderland, with the skipper underlining how important the backing of the fans is to a young squad.

“The fans are massive at home, but they also are away; you could see it at QPR,” Manning added.

“I think there were 2,000 of our fans there and they were just as loud as the other three stands put together. So they make a huge difference, and we need to put performances on that the fans can really get behind and I think the Watford game was the perfect example of that.

“If we can put a few of those together, we can build momentum for this final third of the season."