Burnley FC vs Swanasea City FC Matchday Thread. Turf Moor, Saturday 16/4/11 3pm Kickoff. Welcome one and welcome all, for what we hope will be a fantastic display of football from two teams widely regarded as two of the best "footballing teams" outside the Premiership. Burnley have been doing it at a higher level than the Swans over the last few years, but the ethos is similar. Small club, frugal transfer dealings, good football. Team news; Marvin Bartley starts a 3 game suspension for what looked to be, and was described by Eddie Howe as a "fair tackle", while top scorer Jay Rodriguez is hoping to recover from a hip problem in time for the match. The Swans should hopefully be once again be able to pick from a fully fit squad, so Brendan Rodgers will have to decide whether to keep faith either with the same 11 that started the last 2 games, or to rotate with the run-in gathering speed. ---------------------- Recent Form; Burnley have stuttered of late and are without a win in 6, and haven't won at Turf Moor in 3 games, so will undoubtedly be looking to address that. 2 losses to fellow promotion chasers Leicester and Forest have hindered their chase for the playoffs, so they will be looking to get back to winning ways. To do that, they'll have to beat a Swansea City side who, while they have been consistent at home, have lost their last 3 games on the road, and have suffered losses to some of the "less fashionable" sides in the league such as Scunny, Preston and Derby to name a few. The Swans drew 1-1 at home to Hull on Tuesday, and the manner in which they sat back after taking the lead in that game has been criticised by some. -------------------- Key Battles; For Burnley, Chris Eagles will be looking to exploit the attacking traits of Swansea left-back Neil Taylor (Burnley fans, Eagles generally starts on the right, right?), so it will be important for the former non-league defender to keep an eye on the talented winger. At the other end, Scott Sinclair will be looking to do some damage after a quiet game last time out, and will be looking to attack former West Ham right back Tyrone Mears. Also keep an eye out for Fabio Borini, who has looked a very promising young footballer since arriving on loan from Chelsea. ---------------- Burley come into this game hanging onto their promotion chase by a thread, sitting 7 points adrift of the playoffs, and manager Eddie Howe said before the match they realistically need to win every remaining game to stand any chance of making the playoffs. Swansea meanwhile remain firmly in the auto promotion hunt, 2 points behind Cardiff and 1 behind Norwich, with Reading snapping at their heels. Like Burnley, they are looking to win all their remaining games if promotion through the auto spots is to be attained. -------------------- Predicted Lineups; Burnley 12 Jensen 03 Fox 04 Duff 14 Mears 21 Bikey 06 Cork 08 Marney 11 Elliott 02 Alexander 33 Eagles 26 Delfouneso Swansea City 01 De Vries 02 Williams 03 Taylor 16 Monk 22 Rangel 12 Dyer 21 Sinclair 24 Allen 27 Gower 08 Pratley 15 Borini -------------------- Special mention; In what is a quite incredible feat of longitude, Graham Alexander could be in line for his 1,000th league game of his career, an absolutely outstanding achievement. If he plays, he'll match Tony Ford's record, and what makes it more impressive is that Alexander is still playing at a higher level than Ford did for the latter part of his career. His commitment and the way he has ensured he's stayed fit for so long is a shining light which would be well looked at by the current crop of youngsters coming through. ------------------ Last time out; Swansea City 1-0 Burnley Back in August (god that seems a long time ago now...) Scott Sinclair scored the only goal of the game to secure the 3 points following good work down the right hand side. -------------------- Here's hoping to a good match! When Eddie Howe was first appointed I thought he was an excellent choice, but the form over the last 6 games has dropped off so he will be stressing the importance of 3 points on Saturday. After watching a few interviews with him, he reminds me a lot of Brendan Rodgers, and has already garnered a reputation as a manager who tries to get his team playing good football. The Swans have shown this season that you don't need marquee signings and an "experienced" manager to compete at the top end of the table, and even if Burnley miss out on the playoffs this year, as long as they keep the manager and squad together you'd have to be confident ahead of the coming season once Howe has a full pre-season to instill his ideas into the squad. ----------------------- Scottswan's ill-fated (but recently spot on! But more recently horribly wrong...) and hugely biased prediction; Burnley 1-2 Swansea City Closer to kick off I'll put some radio links up if I can find them. Good luck to Burnley for the rest of the season after 5pm Saturday!
Although I would go with the same line up I got a feeling Buck might shake it up away from home a bit with Pratley & Britton starting in place of Gower & Allen .
I was thinking similar things but thought Gower might retain his place, so Allen and Dobbie out for Pratters and Leon...
.... I so happy for Gower these past few games , it's almost disdescibable . Your probably right , who would take Gower out at this point .. this is so exciting , who knows , this time next season you could be sitting in Anfield watching the boys run out along side Grerrard & Co Scotty .
I must admit though , I had a bad feeling when I didn't see Dobbie's name penciled in . He seems a critical part for the first 60 minutes in our new way .
It's called shooting ourselves in the foot, but we are using a bloody twelve bore shotgun, to finish our season off!!................... please log in to view this image
