And so we make a trip into the valleys for what can only be described as a promotion six-pointer against Swansea City, the club with the best redesigned official logo I have ever seen.
The designer that remains within me tells me it’s cucumber cool and I love it. Fear, not I appreciate ours equally but I wasn’t around to have consciously seen its predecessor, although I reckon some of our MFW readers might have been.
But, enough of badges already. This may well prove to be our sternest test of the season thus far and anybody who took in the *first leg* at Carrow Road will remember just what a good side Swansea are – and they don’t like conceding goals.
It took a gamble [sorry, tactical masterstroke] by Daniel Farke to introduce Bali Mumba and Josh Martin late on to unlock them as we nicked it 1-0.
This window they have added Conor Hourihane from Villa and Morgan Whittaker from Derby, plus the slightly strange acquisition of our alumni Korey Smith from Bristol City who will reunite with everybody’s favourite grasshopper, Kyle Naughton.
It looks like manager Steve Cooper wanted squad depth, big time. We already possess squad depth in spade loads so the Jacks’ acquisitions don’t cause me palpitations, although I’m sure we all remember what an in-form Hourihane can do to us.
I asked a trio of MFW stalwarts for their views on the upcoming encounter and first up is Alex Alexander who regular readers will know simply as Ed.
“Our upcoming game at the Liberty Stadium takes me back almost nine years to the day in 2012 when Brendan Rogers was Swans manager and a certain Paul Lambert was in charge at CR. How their respective careers have ‘progressed’ with Marcus Evans reiterating his support for Lambert at 1p5wich only a few weeks ago!
“We won 3-2, despite Grant Holt giving away a penalty late in the second half, so I ended the day £29 richer as a result of my small gamble. Swans had been on a good run at home, but two goals from Holty and a deflected Pilks shot were enough to give us victory. John Ruddy was in goal for us and Michel Vorm in goal for the Swans and both made some outstanding saves in the dying minutes.
“More recently in 2012, we won 4-1 after leading 3-1 at half time.
“A repeat of those scorelines would be very welcome to keep us on track for promotion.”
From Wivenhoe on the Costa del Colne, Bernie Owen pontificates:
“A top of the table clash of the titans and a game where we can do a clean sweep of our Welsh opposition, having already won three from three.
“I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me but Swansea are playing to or just above their perceived potential for this season, while City are stuttering along in third gear with more to come. NCFC should come out on top as long as they get their shots on target.
“Key players for me [if selected] are Cantwell and Aarons, the Liberty pitch will be better than Barnsley’s and Millwall’s and the flow of the game should be better. I’m pretty sure Swansea’s coaching staff will have seen Cantwell getting annoyed by his close attention in both the Boro and Millwall games so it’s his big chance to show he can handle it and defeat it.”
Alex Bain reckons:
“The transfer window closed with City signing a back-up keeper still recuperating from back surgery who may not be fit for a month. We also bought Academy player Regan Riley from Bolton and Dimitris Giannoulis from PAOK – do we have enough strength in depth for the final push?
“Yet in the same period Swansea have strengthened their squad with Conor Hourihane on loan from Villa, striker Morgan Whittaker from Derby, Paul Arriola from DC United and Kieron Freeman, a defender from Sheffield United, and *our* Korey Smith from Bristol City. These seem excellent additions to an already strong squad who are looking to go one better than the playoffs last year.
“City are favourites to take one of the two automatic promotion places, especially with Watford losing 2-1 to QPR on Monday and Bournemouth coming unstuck at home to Wednesday.“
Our MFW trio seem a little more optimistic that I am about tomorrow evening so I’ll keep my score guess firmly to myself but this is what the lads reckon:
Alex A: I’ll go for 3-1 with McLean, Pukki and either Idah or Martin to get the goals!!
Bernie: We are better defensively than Swansea, they won’t score. So Swansea 0, Norwich 1 with the goal from Pukki.
Alex B: City didn’t turn up at the New Den, scraped a draw and looked really out of sorts so coming into another away game in South Wales I will go with a 1-1 draw but hope for an away win!
Many thanks to Bernie and both Alex’s and let’s hope Swansea will be a better match to watch than the last two borefests!
Something tells me it will be.
***
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Gary
Hi Martin
An hour and a half cricket before duty calls at 7-30am and we are minus the openers.
Tonight will be a testing game win or lose we will still be top dog at the end of the weekend so let’s hope 🙏 for a positive result to keep the points ticking over.
As we both have Spurs as a second team must mention a poor result last night and a first fir Jose in his management career he has never lost 2 consecutive home games until Chelsea called can he last the season out???
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Stay Safe and Keep Healthy 🙏
Hi Alex
February was always going to be an awkward $od and so it’s already proving – and it’s only the fifth today!
I’m sure the vast majority of us would take a draw tonight right now. I would.
As for Jose it’s not been going at all well for him lately and I wouldn’t care to make a guess either way about his future just now.
Cheers mate
https://c.newsnow.co.uk/A/1065579346?-11057:808
If nothing else that confirms Drmic had no fitness issues.
It has to be for the best all round I’d guess.
Yeah just pity there wasn’t a buy clause so he will do an ARNI and be back
I’d (along with a few fellow fans who I know) would love to see a few changes to the starting 11 for the visit to the Liberty, but knowing DF, that’s not very likely to happen.
Despite Swansea ONLY conceding 15 goals all season, we have only conceded 1 more than them over the last 10 games – 6 to us and 5 for Swansea.
I hear ‘the natives’ are getting restless, as we have had two nil-nil draws on the bounce. If you choose to look at the bigger picture, however,, you’ll see that over the last 5 games, we have won 11 points whilst Bournemouth won 1 (and have since sacked Tindall)!! Our total was only beaten by Brentford and if you omit their 7-0 victory at the weekend, they would have an inferior GD.
Hi Ed
Those goal concession stats are interesting indeed.
There’s no denying that Brentford and Swansea are very much cooking though and I think for those of us who choose to look ahead with a degree of pessimism we might already be fearful of finishing third and in the dreaded playoffs.
But we can all hope for better than that, of course 🙂
Thanks as always
Hourihane is a fantastic signing for the Swans. He’s a player I’ve always liked and we really need him to have an off day for this one..
We also need certain players to start stepping up after some mixed displays this season, possibly due to injuries, possibly more. We don’t have time to carry passengers for whatever reason.
I’d take a draw, although given that the circumstances and timing are very similar to Elland Road in 2019, a repeat of that wonderful night would be grand!
Hi Jason
Totally agree about Hourihane. A very good player who always seems to do well against us so like you say, let’s hope he has an off night tonight.
I’m hoping for a start for Onel and the Mayor as kind of #10 with Rupp alongside Skipp but that’s probably exactly what won’t happen knowing my line-up predictions this season!
Cheers
Marty, the Swans won’t park the bus and it’s a decent pitch so an open game. In these Covid times there’s little advantage for the home team, I’ll go for a 2-2. If you know who wasn’t red carded I would have gone for a Canary win.
Thanks Cutty
I’ll recruit you to the MFW advance party for Wycombe and Watford 🙂
So called 6 point games are always of course very interesting. Mr Farke said in press conference that his main concern has been Pukki getting isolated and that midfield must improve to get more help to him. Typically when things like that happen in football, striker obviously starts moving more and more deeper to get ball at least some times. Problem is not striker, its like Farke said midfield and defenders who are allowed to attack. I would like to see Norwich little bit changing line up and put Martin in starting line up to give more creativity to midfield. Also if greek player has struggled then put Sorensen to his place. When you move to playing to other country football is only part of cultural shock, in Greece people move away from home when they are about 30 years old. Im surprised that Farke put him in line up right away and if it was wrong decision it can affect his confidence negatively. Also for Sorensen it surely feels unfair.
In todays football blocking shots has become kind of too big part of defending. It makes games dull and lower scores. Its not difficult to defend with men army and block shots, solution to that would be putting more attacking players against them. No one just do it, because of counter attacks. Less goals and scoring chances means less fans. I do hope we see entertaining game today.
Hi 1×2
Yes, some great points there.
I’ll concentrate on the one you make about Sorensen and Giannoulis. Only maybe 10 years ago in the UK certain owners would say to a manager on a substantial signing: you bought him with our money so you will play him come what may.
That’s not so true any more and I really think Sorensen is extremely unfortunate to be out of the team. I for one would like to see him return tonight, maybe even in a back three.
Of course to drop Giannoulis after just two games would impose very negatively on his confidence and maybe there is room for both him and Sorensen in the same team in a 3-5-2.
Maybe 🙂
I’ve just found out that one of our oldest ‘friends’ is in the middle tonight -Simon Hooper!! 🙁
In the words of Fraser from Dads’ Army – ‘we’re DOOMED!!
Now that’s ruined my entire weekend.
I had no idea he was officiating mate, honestly – I nearly always check out the ref but for whatever reason I forgot this time.
Oh $hit.
Swansea fan in peace! This season has shades of 10 years ago for me, and I can see us both getting promoted – one of us via the playoffs though as I think Brentford are the best team in the league (boooo!). I can see a 1-0 or 0-0 score line tonight but not sure which way it’ll go if it’s 1-0 – I guess you can say whoever breaks the deadlock will probably go on to win. Hopefully it’s a cracker of a game. Best of luck for the remainder of the season (after tonight obviously), but I just want to point out Korey Smith joined us last summer, not during this window and despite a slow start he’s really been playing exceptionally well the last 2 months.
Hi Ross the Jack
MFW always welcomes supporters from other clubs [even 1p5wich when they’re pleasant, and most of them are]!
No need to boo about Brentford. I’m totally up for agreeing with you on that.
Many of us are looking forward to playing you tonight as a much-needed antidote to Boro & Millwall as at least both your supporters and ours will be expecting an expansive and entertaining game.
Thanks for putting us right about Korey Smith, who was always whole hearted when he was here but let go by a very different manager to Daniel Farke of course.
I wouldn’t want the third spot myself – and I bet you wouldn’t either 🙂
Thanks a lot – much appreciated.
Thank you mate – I always like to see the other teams perspective and have to say it’s a well written article and your fans, as always, come across as thoroughly decent proper football fans. I’ve been to Norwich a few times and always enjoyed your lovely City – and especially enjoyed pooping down to Great Yarmouth for some cheesy chips! Hopefully we both go up and I can visit again! All the best.
You deserved it on the night, no doubt about it. Jay Fulton was my pick of your players for what it’s worth. That flap from Krul didn’t help us of course – and that’s so unlike him.
Just out of interest, I’d always been aware of *Swansea Jack* but didn’t know his incredible story until I googled it out of driven curiosity on *Wales Online* this morning. I was amazed to find there were still a few pics of him around as well!
Good luck for the rest of the season.