Competition - FA Cup Venue - St. Mary’s Date - 12 January 2025 Kick off - 4:30 pm Following their fortunate 1-1 at home to Play-Off contenders West Brom, next up for Luke Williams’ inconsistent Swansea squad is a break from Championship action with a trip to the South Coast to play PL Southampton in the Third Round of the FA Cup, although with Russel Martin having recently been sacked by the Saints, the background spice’ that led to the match being televised live has been removed. Last Saturday, (a back from the dead ) Joe Allen came off the bench to score a stoppage-time equaliser for the Swans against Championship promotion-chasers West Bromwich Albion. The managerless Baggies, who had been linked with Swans head coach Luke Williams in the days leading up to this game, had the better of a goalless but open first half with chances at both ends. Substitute Tom Fellows fired the visitors in front with a clinical low finish after the interval, and the Swans seemed unable to summon a response with a blunt second-half display. But that changed in the second minute of injury time as Wales midfielder Allen headed in from Ronald's cross. The point keeps West Brom sixth in the Championship table, while the Swans move up a place to 11th, six points adrift of the play-off spots before the start of Saturday's 15:00 kick-offs. The same day that the Swans were snatching a point against the Baggies, Bryan Mbeumo's double guided Brentford to a first Premier League away win of the season as they crushed lowly Southampton 5-0 at St. Mary’s. Kevin Schade opened the scoring after six minutes, latching on to Mikkel Damsgaard's brilliant defence-splitting pass and slotting in. Mbeumo increased Brentford's lead when he fired into the roof of the net just after the hour mark. The Cameroon international got his second goal of the afternoon from the penalty spot after Chelsea loanee Lesley Ugochukwu caught Sepp van den Berg. Mbeumo turned provider to find Keane Lewis-Potter for the first of Brentford's two stoppage-time goals, with Yoane Wissa latching on to a poor header from substitute Yukinari Sugawara to complete the rout. Brentford move up to 10th in the table while Southampton remain rooted to the bottom on just six points from 20 games. The Swans have played the Saints on 75 previous occasions, winning 21, losing 38 and drawing 16. The teams last met at St. Mary’s 54 weeks ago, when Russell Martin saw his team thrash the Swans 5-0: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NX459KsHzcw Turning to tomorrow, Managers often make wholesale changes for Cup matches these days - particularly in the early rounds of the competition - but I wouldn’t be surprised to see largely ‘full strength’ sides selected by both Managers: Luke Williams may well want to keep his first choice XI in playing action ahead of the looming South Wales derby, whilst Ivan Jurić may want to play his first choice selection to try and ensure a win, thereby lifting the supporters and trying to get his playing inti a ‘winning habit’. That said, I fully expect McLaughlin to make his first start in goal for the Swans - Williams suggested recently that McLaughlin could be seen in action shortly and this would appear to me to be the ideal opportunity. As for the outcome, recognising the gulf between the PL and Championship and also the Swans’ abysmal record on the South Coast in recent seasons, I’m going for a 3-1 home win. Hope I’m wrong
Tony Harrington will be the man in the middle tomorrow. The Cleveland official has taken charge of the Swans on nine previous occasions, with the most recent of those being a 3-2 defeat against Reading at the Swansea.com Stadium during the 2021-22 campaign. He had also been due to officiate the Championship play-off semi-final first leg at Barnsley in May 2021, but had to withdraw as Geoff Eltringham took the whistle. Harrington was promoted to Select Group 1 that summer and has gone on to referee regularly in the Premier League over the last couple of seasons. On Sunday, Harrington will be assisted by Marc Perry and Swansea’s favourite ‘Lino’ Sian Massey-Ellis, while Gavin Ward will be the fourth official.
It would be nice if we did play our "first team" and have a real crack at them. I still think they'll win though, unfortunately Score is dependent on what team Luke plays.
This lot look like they couldn't defend a fire from a match mun ! Our best player goalie is replaced by mc Cochran and the comedy goals have begun !
Oh well we can concentrate on the league now. Our ball retention is not good, I hope we will get to see Ginnelly in the 2nd half.
