Swansea City v Aston Villa Competition - Sky Bet Championship Date - 26 December 2018 Kick off - 3pm Venue - Liberty Stadium Following a disappointing 2-3 defeat at the KCOM Stadium in a match that was for long periods dominated by the Swans, next up for Graham Potter and his Swans squad is a home fixture against fellow promotion/ play-off hopefuls Aston Villa. Against Hull, the Swans conceded three goals in 10 second-half minutes which allowed the Tigers to complete a stunning comeback. Wilfried Bony put the visitors ahead with a powerful early strike on his first start since January, but the visitors were emphatically punished for missing numerous chances. Jarrod Bowen made up for a first-half penalty miss with the equaliser. Tommy Elphick headed the hosts ahead and Bowen scored a superb second before substitute Bersant Celina hit back. Hull rose three places to 16th in the table, while Swansea stayed 12th, five points above the Tigers. The day after the Swans lost, Villa entertained Leeds and the visitors came from 2-0 down to beat Aston Villa in a pre-Christmas cracker as Kemar Roofe's injury-time winner returned Leeds to the top of the Championship. Villa looked fairly comfortable with a two-goal lead at half-time. Tammy Abraham's seventh goal in his last four home games - a close-range finish set up by John McGinn's bursting run - was quickly followed by Conor Hourihane's beautifully placed low left-foot curler just inside Bailey Peacock-Farrell's upright. But Leeds struck twice in five second-half minutes, when half-time sub Jack Clarke's stunning right-foot curler - his first goal for the club - was followed by a Pontus Jansson header. And they won it five minutes into injury time when top scorer Roofe found the bottom corner to send the noisy visiting fans into raptures. The result returned Leeds to the top of the table, and left Villa in eleventh place, one place and one point ahead of the Swans. The teams have met on 28 occasions previously, with the Swans winning 9, losing 16 with 3 drawn. The teams last met in Swansea over the Christmas period on 27 December 1971 - I know coz I was there on my 14th birthday - when Villa ran out 2-1 winners in front of over 24,000 spectators at the Vetch, thanks to goals from Graydon and Aitken. Without any shadow of a doubt, the most poignant meeting between the teams took place on 27 November 2011 when they played out a sombre 0-0 draw with the game overshadowed bynews that morning of the sudden death of Wales Manager Gary Speed. Speed, who had won 85 caps for Wales, was found dead at his Cheshire home earlier that Sunday morning. A pre-match minute of silence at the Liberty Stadium spontaneously gave way to respectful applause and chants of "there's only one Gary Speed". RIP Gary Turning to the forthcoming Boxing Day encounter, with both teams coming into the match on the back of 2-3 defeats, where they both surrendered the lead, I think that the outcome will be a 2-2 draw, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the result was the same as 47 years ago. Either way, Tammy will score both Villa goals ..... Merry Christmas
I haven't a clue how this is going to pan out. Just hope we don't fold in the 2nd half. So going with 2-1
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46614541 Match facts Swansea have won five of their last six competitive meetings with Aston Villa, although they lost their previous Championship game with them earlier this season; 0-1 at Villa Park. Four of the last five meetings between Aston Villa and Swansea City have ended in a 1-0 win; three in favour of Swansea and one for Aston Villa. Aston Villa's last win in Swansea came back in December 1971 (2-1), but they have since gone seven trips there without a victory (W0 D2 L5). Since 1990, Aston Villa have played on Boxing Day on 25 occasions but they have won just five of those games: in 1991, 1997, 1999, 2005 and 2016. Swansea have lost their last two Boxing Day matches by an aggregate score of 1-9 - they lost 1-4 to West Ham in 2016 and 0-5 to Liverpool last year. Swansea have lost their last five home league matches played on a Wednesday since a 3-0 win over Newcastle United in December 2013.
