Ipswich v Swansea Competition - Sky Bet Championship Venue - Portman Road Date - 11 November 2023 Kick off - 3:00pm Following their hard fought 0-0 draw at home against Sunderland, next up for Michael Duff’s Swansea squad is a hard looking trip to Ipswich who sit in second place in the Championship. Last Saturday, the Swans’ 10 men held on for a gutsy goalless draw at home to Sunderland in an eventful Championship encounter. Swansea were being outplayed even before midfielder Charlie Patino was rather harshly sent off for two yellow cards by Bobby Madley after half an hour. Although Sunderland twice hit the woodwork in a dominant first-half display, the Swans had a golden chance to take the lead, albeit against the run of play, but Jamal Lowe's penalty was saved by Anthony Patterson. Sunderland kept the pressure on their dogged opponents after the break but they were frustrated by a combination of wasteful finishing, wholehearted defending and inspired goalkeeping from Swansea's Carl Rushworth. The result saw Sunderland remain eighth in the Championship, two points adrift of the play-off places, while the Swans dropped a place to 14th. On Tuesday, Christ Tiehi's late equaliser gave struggling Rotherham a point against high-flying Ipswich, who missed the chance to cut Leicester's lead at the top of the Championship to a single point. Jack Taylor appeared to have given Kieran McKenna's Ipswich side a late victory with a goal three minutes from time, but Tiehi's shot from distance snatched a draw for the Millers in a frantic finish. The visitors had come from behind to lead after Sam Morsy's wonderful finish cancelled out Sam Nombe's early opener. The Tractor Boys stay second, three points behind leaders Leicester but eight clear of third-placed Leeds, while Rotherham remain in the bottom three after just one win in their past 10 matches. The Swans have played Ipswich on 31 previous occasions, winning 12, losing 10 and drawing 9. The teams last met in the Championship in April 2019, when a Wayne Routledge goal gave the Swans a 1-0 win: A memorable match took place almost 42 years ago to the day (7/11/81) when Tosh’s boys ran out 3-2 victors with goals from Curt, Bob Latchford and Gary Stanley: Turning to this weekend, Sunny Gill will be the man in charge. It will be the first time that he has taken charge of a Swans match, however, he was part of the officiating team which travelled to the Swansea.com Stadium for the home match against Huddersfield Town in April. He was fourth official that day. Gill was promoted to the EFL in June 2022, after excelling in the National League. He became the first South Asian referee in the 72 since his father Jarnail in 2010. Refereeing runs in the Gill family with brother Bhupinder running the line as an assistant referee working in the EFL. Following his promotion to the National List of Referees, he oversaw 31 matches last term, mostly in League One and League Two. So far this season he has overseen 15 matches, handing out 66 yellow cards and two reds. He made his Championship debut last weekend when he was handed the whistle for the match between Huddersfield Town and Watford. He will be assisted by Shaun Hudson and Graham Kane. Leigh Doughty will be the fourth official. The Swans will be without Charlie Patino who is suspended following his red card against Sunderland. Additionally, Josh Key and Mykola Kuharevich remain sidelined with knocks, whilst Joe Allen, Josh Ginnelly, Nathan Wood and Akeem Abdulai are longer-term absentees. So Duff will not have any players back from injury to bolster his squad at Portman Road, although he has been impressed by how his squad have backed up results and performances since their poor start to the season. Ipswich Manager Kieran McKenna and goalkeeper Vaclav Hladky have both been nominated for awards. McKenna has been nominated for the SkyBet Championship Manager of the Month award for October, having previously won the prize for September, while Vas is up for the SkyBet Championship Player of the Month award. With Town winning all four of their league games in October, Kieran has been nominated for the prize alongside Enzo Maresca of Leicester City, Middlesbrough’s Michael Carrick and Southampton boss Russell Martin. Vas, who was voted Ipswich’s Player of Month for both September and October, is now up for the divisional award having continued his excellent form, contributing a string of impressive saves while also showcasing his quality with his feet. The Czech stopper is up against Leicester’s Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Crysencio Summerville of Leeds United and Cardiff City defender Perry Ng. The winners of the two awards will be decided by an EFL judging panel, with both announced on Friday, 10 November - let’s hope that McKenna wins and the Manager of the Month curse kicks in Whilst Ipswich will be strong favourites to maintain their push for automatic promotion, I have a sneaky feeling that the Swans will return to South Wales with (at least) a point, 1-1
Thanks Taff. Probably, Leicester aside, our biggest test of the season. Hopefully we will turn up for this one. If we do I agree with Taff, it's a 1-1 for me
Despite the best will in the world I'm not sure the random lottery resulterator is going to save us this time. 2 - 0 Ipswich (go go randomiser!)
2-0 to Ipswich I'm going with, although as we are a stereotypical mid-table team we could pull off a shock win only to lose our next match.
Bashir Humphreys and Charlie Patino have been called up to the England Under-21s’ squad for the upcoming Euro 2025 qualifiers against Serbia and Northern Ireland. The defending European champions sit second in qualification Group F behind Ukraine. In the last international break they had mixed fortunes beating Serbia 9-1 before losing 3-2 to Ukraine. During the October international break, they will be travelling to Serbia on November 18 (4pm kick-off) and will host Northern Ireland on November 21 (7.45pm kick-off).
It's a pity we didn't have a full strength squad to pick from. We all know how inconsistent we are, the only thing to learn from this match is how good Ipswich are? They seem to win a lot of games by 1 goal plus seem to have had a few favorable decisions going their way. Still I'll go for a 4th consecutive away win.
Jay Fulton returns to the Swansea City starting line-up in the solitary change for this afternoon's Championship fixture against Ipswich Town at Portman Road. The Scot comes into the Swans midfield in place of the suspended Charlie Patino, while youngsters Sam Parker and Kyrell Wilson - the latter in a senior matchday squad for the first time - could make their debuts from the bench. The visitors are otherwise unchanged from the draw against Sunderland with Carl Rushworth continuing in goal. Harrison Ashby, Harry Darling, Bashir Humphreys and Josh Tymon again make up the back four, with Fulton slotting in alongside captain Matt Grimes in midfield. Jamal Lowe, Jamie Paterson and Liam Cullen will operate ahead of them, while Jerry Yates leads the line. Swansea City: Carl Rushworth, Jay Fulton, Harry Darling, Matt Grimes (captain), Jerry Yates, Jamal Lowe, Jamie Paterson, Josh Tymon, Liam Cullen, Harrison Ashby, Bashir Humphreys. Substitutes: Andy Fisher, Ben Cabango, Nathan Tjoe-A-On, Kyle Naughton, Liam Walsh, Ollie Cooper, Sam Parker, Cameron Congreve, Kyrell Wilson. Ipswich Town: Vaclav Hladky, Harry Clarke, Leif Davis, Sam Morsy (captain), Luke Woolfenden, Conor Chaplin, Jack Taylor, Cameron Burgess, Omari Hutchinson, George Hirst, Nathan Boadhead. Substitutes: Christian Walton, Wes Burns, Freddie Lapado, Marcus Harness, Kayden Jackson, Dane Scarlett, Massimo Luongo, Cameron Humphreys, Axel Tuanzebe.
