The Match
Swansea seem back to their good old unpredictable selves. Just when we thought we might have turned a corner we put in probably our worst performance under Monk, limping home to a 1-0 defeat at Hull, and we'll have to do a damn sight better if we're take any points off a Chelsea side buoyed by their progression to the Champions League semi-final. With a fully-fit squad to choose from Garry Monk will have options at his disposal, and only he'll know which team he intends to send out this weekend as he bids to get the team playing like they were when he first took over. The impetus he injected back in February is threatening to wane, and a couple more positive results are needed between now and the end of the season in order that we finish the campaign on a positive note.
Chelsea, as mentioned, spent Wednesday evening coming from behind to beat Paris Saint-Germain, but whether that'll be of benefit is anyone's guess. The old cliché is that teams are understandably leggy after midweek European exploits, but at this stage of the season (and with Chelsea needing maximum points to maintain a realistic title challenge) every game takes on the one-off air of a cup final, so to expect anything less than a full-blooded performance from the visitors would be foolhardy.
Prior Form (Most recent at top)
| Premier League | Hull | 1-0 | Swansea |
| Premier League | Swansea | 3-0 | Norwich |
| Premier League | Arsenal | 2-2 | Swansea |
| Premier League | Everton | 3-2 | Swansea |
| Premier League | Swansea | 1-2 | West Brom |
| Champions League | Chelsea | 2-0 | PSG |
| Premier League | Chelsea | 3-0 | Stoke |
| Champions League | PSG | 3-1 | Chelsea |
| Premier League | Crystal Palace | 1-0 | Chelsea |
| Premier League | Chelsea | 6-0 | Arsenal |
Team News
Provided by resident fitness guru @BenDinnery - make sure to follow him on Twitter for the latest injury news and views
For Swansea, Garry Monk will be hoping to forget the disappointment of last week’s performance at Hull knowing that a victory against Chelsea would almost certainly guarantee Swansea’s Premier League status.The Jacks have no major injury concerns although the fitness of Marvin Emnes will be assessed and Kyle Bartley is once again expected to miss out. Wilfried Bony is likely to lead the line but Monk must decide whether to continue with Michu who was disappointing at the KC Stadium or recall Pablo Hernandez who looked a lively replacement. Nathan Dyer will be pushing for his 18th start of the campaign after his introduction at half-time on Saturday with Jonathon de Guzman the man who could be sacrificed.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho conveniently cancelled Friday’s press-conference preferring in short “to focus his attention on this weekend’s fixture”, the Blues have lost to Crystal Palace and Aston Villa in recent times which has all but ended their title hopes. Nemanja Matic and Mohamed Salah will almost certainly play a part after missing the win over PSG (ineligible) with Demba Ba staking a claim after his dramatic Champions League quarter-final winner. Captain John Terry will face a late fitness test because of a foot injury but Belgium midfielder Eden Hazard has been ruled out due to a calf strain.
Completely guessed lineups
Statistics & Trivia
- Swansea have scored in 94% or their home matches this season, averaging 1.81 goals a game.
- Chelsea have failed to score in 38% of their away games, but they do average 1.44 goals per game away from Stamford Bridge.
- Worryingly, the Swans have conceded the same amount (1.44 goals per game) at home this season - Chelsea concede just 0.94 goals per game away from home.
- Swansea City have won three and lost just one of their last five home league games (D1), keeping a clean sheet in all three wins.
- Chelsea have won three and lost none of their five previous Barclays Premier League meetings with Swansea (D2).
- Swansea City have already lost more games this season (16) than ever before in a single Premier League campaign.
- Eden Hazard was given his only red card in English football on the last occasion that the Swans hosted Chelsea at the Liberty Stadium, following an altercation with a ballboy.
- Swansea City have won just one of their previous 10 Premier League games in the month of April (W1 D4 L5).
- Chelsea have won 11 and drawn one of their last 12 Premier League games played on a Sunday and have won their last nine in a row.
- Swansea last won a Premier League game on a Sunday in September – they have gone 10 Sunday PL games without a victory since (D4 L6).
- André Schürrle has scored seven goals in 12 PL starts this season, but is yet to score in any of his 13 apps as a substitute.
- ‘Own Goals’ is Swansea’s second top goalscorer this season with eight goals – only Wilfried Bony (11) has more.
- Chelsea have lost their last two Premier League away games. Jose Mourinho has never suffered three successive Premier League away defeats within a single season before.
Straight from the horse's mouth
Garry Monk is clearly looking for a reaction from his squad:
"We'll make sure we get a reaction. You do that by making sure the players understand that performances like Hull cannot happen."We haven't got time to play like that in the situation we're in. To be fair to the boys, they have been good generally — they have trained well and the effort has been there. But Hull was a bit like West Brom, when we played well first half and then in the second we were very poor for some reason."That's why I keep talking about consistency. That's something we have to find."
Jose Mourinho cancelled his media duties prior to this game... so in keeping with that I'll ignore any sounds coming from the Chelsea camp.
Analysis
I think fairly predictably the main question ahead of this one - for Chelsea at least - is just how they'll react to their midweek exertions against PSG. Hopefully it's either knackered them out or served as a sufficient distraction to allow the Swans a famous win, but whether that's me being the perennial optimist I don't know.
They're a very good side, and since the introduction of Matic to their midfield I think they've looked a lot more like an efficient team unit. If they had the striker they've so obviously lacked (Lukaku?) for the last two seasons they really would be a force to be reckoned with right now, which seems a strange thing to be saying about a team who are in the Semi-Finals of the Champions League, and who are still very much involved in the title race. For me though, Chelsea don't inspire fear the way that Manchester City or Liverpool currently do, and I think the Swans could be in with a chance here.
Mourinho famously wrote off his team's title chances - that was obviously tongue-in-cheek but lose against the Swans and they'll have it all to do - especially considering they go to Anfield in a few weeks time. They can't afford to lose this weekend, so any notions of "taking their eyes off the prize" should be firmly dispelled as Mourinho goes all-out for the win. As mentioned above, the Liberty isn't a favoured hunting ground of Chelsea so they'll be looking to buck that trend and claim a first win at Swansea's new home.
As for the Swans - what to change? After an abject performance at Hull I'd definitely replace Michu with Pablo Hernandez, and restore De Guzman to the middle of the park with Dyer returning out wide. We had been showing proper balance and width before Michu's return - it's fairly obvious we changed the system to specifically accommodate him and to be honest any time a team does that I worry.
When you have a team that's built so much on every cog in the machine understanding his role implicitly, you simply can't afford to build a team around one player, and we had been showing that we remembered how to use the full pitch to create openings, and how to feed off a powerful striker capable of linking play. Time to get back to that before it costs us any more points. I expect Pablo to return for Michu, as well as possibly Dyer for Shelvey, with De Guzman moving back into central midfield. That'd give us more natural width, plus a solid controlled base off which to build as we look to combat the steel of Matic and the leggy enthusiasm of Ramires.
Lastly, I've got my fingers crossed that John Terry is unavailable, as if it's Wilfried Bony vs David Luiz I can only see there being one winner. Luiz will get annoyed at not being able to muscle Big Wilf, and at some point he'll either get done or react and clatter him. There's goals in this one, of that I'm sure.
If we can get back to how we were playing a few games ago we could well get a positive result here. Chelsea have amazing players but they're far from a devastating attacking threat - the 6-0 win over Arsenal is definitely not an indicator of how they normally fare in front of goal - and if we can get our noses in front early on the fatigue imbued by a midweek European fixture could see Chelsea chasing shadows as we retain possession a lá the Swansea of old. It all sounds so simple...