Swansea City vs Hull City Matchday Thread. Liberty Stadium Tuesday April 12th 2011 7:45pm ko Welcome one and all. Tuesday night sees the arrival of Hull, who boast one of, if not the best run of form away from home in the UK right now. Their last loss came on the 28th of September away at Turf Moor (where they went down 4-0 to Burnley). In contrast, they are up against a more than miserly-at-home Swansea outfit, who've conceded just 9 goals at Fortress Liberty all season, and have recently put 3 goals a piece on Norwich, Forest and Leeds (with the Swans keeping clean sheets in two of those games, to boot). Interestingly, if you add together our home record with your away record, you get 77 points, only 2 behind QPR! Football is a mad game... ---------------------- Team news; Brendan Rodgers once again has a fully fit squad to choose from, and his biggest headache is likely to be appeasing players who have not featured so much of late. Particularly, Darren Pratley must be chomping at the bit, and Tamas Priskin will be pushing for a first home start, however if you ask me it's likely we'll see an unchanged 11 from the side that turned over Norwich on the weekend. Nigel Pearson is going to have to replace Brad Guzan (excellent on Saturday by all accounts) with Matt Duke. The former has to return to parent club Aston Villa due to the end of his loan spell, while the latter has been recalled from Derby given the injury to Vito Mannone. The only other worry for Hull is James Harper, and they are likely to give him a late fitness test before the game. -------------------- Recent form; Swansea beat Norwich at home last time out, and are now unbeaten in 5 home games since the 1-0 reverse to rivals Cardiff. They have, however, faltered away from home which has meant defeats to struggling S****horpe, Derby and Preston which may yet prove crucial in the race for promotion. Hull have it the other way around, with inconsistency at home coupled with a fantastic away record. They've only won 3 of their last 6 home & away, but on the road they've won their last 4 games, and 5 of the last 6! Impressive stuff, no doubt about that. It all bodes well so far for an intriguing game... --------------------- Last time out; Hull City 2 - 0 Swansea City This game was all about John Bostock for me, he completely ran the show before smashing home an absolute screamer to seal the 3 points for the Tigers. --------------------- Key battles; For the Swans, it's hard to look past Scott Sinclair and his goals this season...... but I'm going to. Fabio Borini has given the club a lift since he came in, and has scored 3 goals in as many games (all coming at the Liberty Stadium thus far). He'll be looking to test Matt Duke, especially given that Brad Guzan had started 16 of the last 17 games. Duke will be looking to put in a confident display to put in a claim for the no1 shirt. Also it's worth noting the re-invigourated strike pairing of Aaron McLean and Matty Fryatt, who've started to click of late. The Swans defence will have to be just as stout as they were against Norwich if we're to add another clean sheet to this seasons tally. ------------------- Hull come into this game just 5 points off the play-offs, and while they are unlikely to view the Swans as a soft touch, Nigel Pearson will undoubtedly be reminding his players of the 2-0 reverse on the opening day of the season, as well as reinforcing the importance of the current amazing away run. This means the Tigers will come into this game full of confidence despite the difference in league positions. Swansea meanwhile closed the gap (and stopped it becoming nigh-on unassailable) by beating Norwich on the weekend, and are now just a point off 2nd place, and a goal off 3rd place. We're at the point of the season where it looks like goal difference is going to play a very crucial factor, so every goal really will count. The Swans, like Hull, will be full of condifence given their excellent home record. ----------------------- Special Mention; I will always, always remember that day at the Vetch Field when we made sure of our Football League status be beating Hull City 4-2. We needed those points a lot more than you did at the time, and where we both sit in the upper echelons of the footballing pyramid is testament to how far we've both come since then, but no matter how many promotions we enjoy, goals we score, or marquee signings Daiswan arranges ( ;-) ), I will never get a better feeling than when James Thomas looked up, saw the space, and chipped the keeper for his hat-trick, thus ensuring our survival as a professional football team. Spine-tingling stuff. ----------------------- Lineups; Swansea City 01 De Vries 02 Williams 03 Taylor 16 Monk 22 Rangel 12 Dyer 21 Sinclair 24 Allen 27 Gower 14 Dobbie 15 Borini Hull City 01 Duke 03 Dawson 04 Hobbs 16 Chester 25 Gerrard 30 Rosenior 08 Harper 22 Koren 28 C Evans 12 Fryatt 33 Mclean ------------------------------ Scottswan's famously ill-fated (but recently spot on!) and hugely biased prediction - Swansea City 3 - 1 Hull City Here's hoping to a good match from two teams who have every right to go into this game full of confidence. STID. (Little bit disappointed you can't make these appear on both boards to be honest... big downfall of this site. Still, if this is where people go these days!)
Great thread Scottswan, i'm looking forward to the game. It will be a hard game but i'm hoping for a point. Prediction 1-1 Fryatt
Cheers dude, it should be a cracker. I've got some good memories of seeing Swans Hull down the Vetch, hopefully this will be every bit as good!
Good work Scottswan. I think this will be a tough one, but I'll go 1-1 Fryatt as well, he's due a goal. I'm not sure if there's any plans to allow multi board posting, I'll sound out Mick and the other moderators about at least allowing double board posting for matchday threads.
Good idea man, it just gets a bit of banter going that's all! It's easy enough to delete spam these days.
good balanced thread.. my head says this will be the game our away run ends, but ive said that every game since november to be fair a point would be good result normally, but our slim play off chances, hinge on winning every game id say..so id rather us go for it and risk losing 3-1 , 3-2..then grind out an impressive, but rather useless draw..
Draws haven't been our forté this year so you might be alright there! Under Sousa we were 0-0 specialists, but it's been 28 games since our last 0-0, and we've only drawn 6 games all season! Mad stats... If my prediction for this game is right that'll be two in a row and I'll definitely be getting some money on the next one! haha
great read..... the tigers away form would like me to hope for a win but i cant see it so 1-1. We loose tonight and the play offs are dead in the water. We win and i will be excited again.
Excellent thread. Very detailed and informative for both sets of fans. Hoping Rosenior can keep Sinclair quiet and City keep it a tight game like in most their away performances. Predicting a 1-1 draw but at the same time got a feeling this could be the game to end our away record. Feeling slightly less confident due to the return of Duke but hopefully he'll prove me wrong.
Anyone know if Oxley is fit again? If not, we're going to have Cracknell on the bench and he's never been anywhere near the first team squad before.
I was wondering how you guys felt about Duke coming back in? I think a huge thing with goalkeepers is continuity and confidence. If he makes a couple of good saves and claims from crosses early on normally they're ok, but a slip up early on and they tend to panic a bit...
He is prone to the odd mistake, although when he's had a period on the sidelines he normally comes in and has 3 or 4 solid games. Once he's made that first mistake though his form seems to drop, his kicking becomes wayward and you can normally see it's starting to play on his mind. Either way i think he's gonna get a good test tonight.
Haha! Sorry about that... I have a memory of Hull fans being bombarded with the wooden triangular sponsor board supports (no idea how else to describe them) which must have weighed about 5kg! Some idiot left a pile of them behind the North Bank years ago and it wasn't long before they were flying your direction...sad times. There's a pub right outside the stadium which should be fine, lots of away fans go there, it's in the car park on the stadium grounds. DO NOT go to the Railway across the dual carriageway... failing that there's loads in the town centre which should be roughly a ã5/10 taxi journey to the stadium.
We're the stand-out game according to Betfair : Swansea v Hull The Championship's second-best hosts face the top travellers in this evening's stand-out domestic game and the smart money has to be on both records being sustained. Swansea have delivered when it has mattered most in recent weeks in front of their fans, beating Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Norwich, but Hull are on a spectacular run of 15 away outings without defeat, so the Swans have to be laid at 1.76, or alternatively the draw backed at 3.9.
Jason Price, blast from the past or what! For someone who's main attribute was that he could run quite fast, he's done awfully well for himself.
MalteseMick has already responded, he's looking into the possibilities of adding a two board posting option for match day threads, I'll let you know if I get any further info.
Cheers man! It makes so much more sense I think... Happy birthday Jason! Did he become "JJ" at Hull or was that a rebranding for Yorkshire only? Fair play, he has had some excellent hair over the years! Wonder who he's rooting for out of the two of us?
