Sunderland travel to the Swansea.com Stadium to face Swansea City in the Championship. Last time out Sunderland beat Norwich and Swansea beat Blackburn Sunderland striker Eliezer Mayenda missed the Norwich game due to a tight hamstring and was not risked. The Black Cats ended their losing streak with a solid performance and a 3-1 win against the Canaries. Tony Mowbray will have a few more players in contention with Cirkin, Dack, Aouchiche and Mayenda all pushing for a start after injury. However Dan Ballard and Luke O’Nien are one card away from a suspension. Swansea moved up to 13th place with a well deserved victory at Ewood park, the Swans took the lead though Liam Cullen in the first half after having two goals ruled out for offside. Tony Mowbray: "I'm looking forward to having a week now to prepare for the next game. "I was pretty confident that the players were still confident. I talk to our analysts a lot and I wanted lots of positive clips from the games we didn't win, to make sure they didn't forget that this is a good team and we're going to win a lot of games. Yes we have to learn from defeats, but we want them to stay positive." "Rusyn has been brought in, we've paid money for him, he's not an 18-year-old kid, he's a 25-year-old man and we felt he was about ready. He'd had all that training and played some U21 games. He's here, let's put him on. He was brought here as a striker, not a left winger or a right winger. He was brought here to play down the middle. "We had Timur [Tuterov] in all of our meetings this week, who is a translator for him, he's a young Ukrainian player. We even did a presentation in Ukrainian for him so he could understand. I'm pleased for him. He worked hard, he grew into the game, he'll be given another opportunity and has to keep trying to grab them. Ideally he scores a goal. "It is the same for Hemir really. It would have been great if he'd scored one of the chances pretty late on. It would be nice to have the dilemma of a couple of strikers scoring, but that will come. There are lots of games and they're all working hard." Michael Duff: "The game should have been out of sight now and it wasn't and they're a good team. "It was a case of trying to do the other side of the game well, whilst trying to pick them off on the counter attack. "People put their bodies on their line, defended, made blocks when they had to. For all their opportunities, Carl [Rushworth] has not really made a brilliant save. "It definitely wasn't comfortable but it was a well-earned win in the end." Match Appointments: Referee: ROBERT MADELY Assistant Referees: Craig Taylor & Robert Merchant Fourth Official: Ben Atkinson Team Lineups: Sunderland AFC: (4-2-3-1) Patterson, Huggins, Ballard, O’Nien, Hume, Ekwah, Neil, Clarke, Prichard, Roberts, Rusyn. Subs: Bishop, Cirkin, Seelt, Dack, Rigg, Ba, Jobe, Hemir, Mayenda. Injured: Evans, Alese, Matete, Pembele. Swansea (4-2-3-1) Rushworth, Ashby, Darling, Humphreys, Tymon, Grimes, Patino, Cullen, Paterson, Lowe, Yates. Subs: Fisher, Pedersen, Fulton, Cabango, Tjoe-A-On, Naughton, Walsh, Cooper, Congreve. Injured: Ginelly, Allen, Ogbeta, Wood, Abdulai Betting Odds: Sunderland 2/1 Swansea 7/2 Draw 18/5 Prutton Predicts: meh My two pence: Hopefully Tony has even more players to chose from with no new injuries. Ballard is eligible to play after it emerged that he was not shown a yellow card on Saturday. Swansea are a decent side and could cause us a few problems, just like they did last season - twice. I’m going for a 2-1 away win Live Stream: This game is available to overseas fans https://safc.com/news/team-news/live-video Ha’way the Lads
Quality as always @RTB Players hopefully back from injury, a week to recharge the batteries and prepare for the game and the back of a win. There could be changes, it might just as easy be the same starting 11. Play at our usual tempo and we should have more than enough to beat them. I'm going 1-3 to us with Rusyn, Roberts and Hemir to bag their first goals of the season
Love the old matchday thread back at home Friday so will be able to watch this one in some shape or form going 3-1 to the lads and a good show on the pitch COME ON
Always seems to be a close game against them. Think it was last season when they completely played us off the park. ( I maybe mistaken) but sure it was. I'll take a 1-1 but be very happy with a win.
Always seem a bit of a bogey team in my mind. I’d take a point to be fair. Hopefully a full week to prepare will give the lads a boost.
There's nothing scary about Swansea, they're a bang average team who'll lose more than they win this season. They lost their last home game to Watford who hadn't won away since January ... .... losing at Leicester didn't worry me too much but I expect us to win there and believe we will. I could see Cirkin back in and possibly Dack for a clever professional performance and a 2-0 win. I hope this storm doesn't affect us. I'd imagine the team will fly down but the trains may be affected for our supporters. .
We've not beaten these since 2016 so it's time to change that stat. They've struggled a bit at home so we have to take advantage of that, they're a possession team but so were Southampton, we can nick this one of we're on it from minute one. HTL.
For me I think this game will be won by whichever team has the better press and wins the ball in opposition territory. We have been good at that most of the season and Believe we have a more adventurous attack so I think we will win this but I have a feeling it wont be a comfortable afternoon until later in the game that said I will go for a nervy 0-2 with a late penalty. HWTL
Think I'll go 1-2 in this one. Will be interesting to see who he goes with after a full week of training and who exactly is available. HTL
cheers again RTB... lads coming back, fighting for places, good energy in the squad...this could be our best performance so far this season or it could be the worst, have every faith in the lads who walk onto the pitch though and am sure they will give their all. should be a good game though as they are unlikely to sit and wait and we only know one way...forwards.
Thanks again RTB for another top class match day thread , hopefully we should win this one and keep nicely placed in the playoff scramble, OaU.
Will this storm be gone by then? Will the game be played? Hoping for an easy 5-2 win to the cuddlies with Rusyn & Hemir getting on the score sheet. I think Roberts is due a goal as well. Worried about injuries though on a heavy pitch. But I would deffo settle for a scrappy 1-0 win & 3 points now. As is the norm a tremendous write up RTB.
