Lawrence Vigouroux, Jisung Eom and Gonçalo Franco are set to make their Swansea City debuts in Saturday’s Championship opener at Middlesbrough (12.30pm). Vigouroux starts in goal, with Eom operating out wide and Franco in midfield, with fellow new arrival Žan Vipotnik among the substitutes at the Riverside Stadium. Josh Key, Josh Tymon, Ben Cabango and Harry Darling make up the Swansea defence ahead of Vigouroux as Luke Williams sticks with the back four that secured a clean sheet against Rio Ave in Swansea’s final pre-season friendly. Skipper Matt Grimes is joined by Jay Fulton and Franco in the middle of the park with Azeem Abdulai and Eom out wide. Liam Cullen leads the line for the visitors, while youngsters Dan Watts and Josh Thomas could make their senior Swansea debuts from the bench. Swansea City: Lawrence Vigouroux; Josh Key, Harry Darling, Ben Cabango, Josh Tymon; Matt Grimes (captain), Jay Fulton, Gonçalo Franco; Azeem Abdulai, Liam Cullen, Jisung Eom. Substitutes: Nathan Broome, Kristian Pedersen, Žan Vipotnik, Nathan Tjoe-A-On, Kyle Naughton, Ollie Cooper, Ronald, Dan Watts, Josh Thomas. Middlesbrough: Seny Dieng, Rav van den Berg, Matt Clarke, Hayden Hackney, Riley McGree, Emmanuel Latte Lath, Isaiah Jones, Luke Ayling (captain), Aidan Morris Finn Azaz, Lukas Engel. Substitutes: Tom Glover, Dan Barlaser, Delano Burgzorg, Alex Gilbert, Anfernee Dijksteel, Jonny Howson, Micah Hamilton, Josh Coburn, George McCormick.
Our bench shows how light our squad is, need to get that squad built up and quickly. One or two injuries and our side will be a poor one at best.
Already I think everyone- including the Middlesboro commentators can see that our defence is awful. That will not change for the foreseeable future. It’s just the way it is.
We look poor at the back as usual, nothing done about this problem which has been with us for at least three seasons.
