| Swansea City 1 v 2 Ipswich Town SkyBet Championship Saturday, 17th February 2024 Kick-off 15:00 |  |
McKenna: It'll Take a Lot of Work Off the Ball to Stop Swansea Friday, 16th Feb 2024 12:34 Town boss Kieran McKenna says his players will have to be prepared to do a lot of work off the ball when they face Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday. The fourth-placed Blues returned to winning ways with a thumping 4-0 victory over Millwall on Wednesday night and moved within a point of Southampton in third. The Saints are in action at West Brom on Friday evening with second-placed Leeds at Plymouth on Saturday afternoon. Town play the second of nine games against teams in the lower or middle reaches of the division in South Wales. The Swans, who were beaten 4-0 at home by Leeds on Tuesday, currently sit in 17th in the Championship, seven points off the drop zone. They have won only once in their last six in the Championship, losing four, with their solitary victory a surprise 1-0 success at Hull City. During that run they also lost 5-0 at AFC Bournemouth in the FA Cup. At home in the league this season they have won four, drawn five and lost seven, including their last three. They most recently won at the Liberty Stadium in the Championship on New Year’s Day when they defeated West Brom 1-0, although they did defeat League Two Morecambe 2-0 in the FA Cup a few days later. Only two teams in the division have conceded more goals than the Swans, 52 in their 31 fixtures so far. At home, just two Championship sides have scored fewer than their total of 17, while five teams have conceded more than the 23 they have shipped, the same number as Town. The Blues go into the match only three days after the win at Millwall and McKenna hints that with the quick turnaround, he may make changes to his XI. “We’ll assess everyone after tonight,” he said following the victory at the Den. “It’s going to demand great energy, no doubt about that. “They impose a real possession-based style and it’s going to take a lot of work off the ball to stop them and to try and create opportunities for ourselves. “We’re going to need plenty of fresh legs and we’re going to need plenty of energy, so we’ll assess how everyone comes in tomorrow and prepare as well as we can in the short time that we have.” The Portman Road match in November, which ended 3-2 to Town, was an entertaining affair and McKenna is anticipating a similar encounter, although with the Swans now under new management. Luke Williams, who joined from Notts County at the start of January following Michael Duff’s exit, having previously a member of Russell Martin’s staff during the Southampton boss’s time in charge at the Liberty Stadium. “It was a really good game the first time around,” McKenna recalled. “I think they’ve got some good players and like so so many of the teams that we’re playing second time around, you’re playing them with a new manager. “But they’ve got good players, they’re working hard to impose their style of play and we’ll go there and try and be ourselves as well, so it should make for a good game.” The Swans, like Millwall on Wednesday, appear to still be finding their feet after their change of management and McKenna was asked whether that made them more unpredictable. “I think in football you can never be certain anyway,” he told Town TV. “You can watch the team’s last games but there are always variations. “Millwall set up a little bit differently than they had done in previous games and what we expected, and many teams do. “As well, the better your team’s doing, the more likely it is that some teams will tweak things against you. “It’s clear the essence of the team that Swansea want to be from the history of the coach and the traditions of that club. “But the details within that, you always have to be ready for variability within that and that’s why it’s important to work with the group over a good period of time to be ready for all the different tactical variations the game can present and deal with what comes on the day.” McKenna says it’s another game to look forward to with the Blues set to take another big following to South Wales. “A really good night the other night, the supporters were fantastic,” he added. “Swansea have been a good Championship team and were a good Premier League team not that many years ago. “A great challenge for us, the type of game that you should look forward to going to. A good stadium and a good pitch against a good team. We’re going there in good form and will try and impose ourselves. “It’s one that, hopefully, the supporters can enjoy and all the more so if we can get a performance and a result.” McKenna is likely to make one or two changes to his starting line-up with the game coming so soon after the match at Millwall. Vaclav Hladky will be in goal with Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess again set to be the centre-halves with Town having picked up their first clean sheet in seven matches at the Den. Harry Clarke and Leif Davis will be the full-backs. McKenna could make a switch in the centre of his midfield with Massimo Luongo not usually starting three games in a week. Lewis Travis could come in for his third start and first alongside skipper Sam Morsy with Jack Taylor still sidelined witha quad injury. Conor Chaplin could return in the central role ahead of the pivot for Omari Hutchinson, despite the on-loan Chelsea man’s impressive display against Millwall. Wes Burns and Nathan Broadhead may continue in the wider roles but with Marcus Harness and Jeremy Sarmiento also in contention for starts. Kieffer Moore seems certain to keep his place as the number nine. Swans manager Williams knows his team will have to be better than they were against Leeds on Tuesday. “The players have been brilliant in how hard they work,” he told his club’s official website. “We just need to keep putting the repetitions and the practice in, and we then have to go and put that work out on the pitch. “Of course, I was upset after the game in midweek, but there is no issue with the application of the players and how they are working. “But I am telling them and everyone that we have to start playing football and thinking about the game at a higher level so we can try and compete, not just be in this division but make a fist of it. “We absolutely have to get back to work, we do not have time to sit and sulk or dwell on the game in midweek. We have to go and work and put in a much better performance.” Josh Key, Harrison Ashby, Azeem Abdulai, Sam Parker, Liam Walsh, Josh Ginnelly and Jamal Lowe have all been out with injury recently, while Harry Darling is closing in on a return. Town striker Al-Hamadi was a youth player with the Swans and is the only player on either side facing his old club. Over the years Swansea have just had the better of it, winning 12 games (12 in the league), Town having won 11 (nine) and with nine (eight) matches ending in draws. At Portman Road in November, Town moved level on points with leaders Leicester City following a 3-2 victory over the 10-man Swans, but remained behind the Foxes on goal difference. Jay Fulton gave the visitors the lead in the seventh minute as the McKenna’s men started slowly but a brilliant Taylor strike and a predatory finish from Chaplin saw the Blues into the lead at half-time, before a George Hirst penalty, the first in a Town match this season, on 53 secured the advantage. Lowe pulled one back in injury time for the Welshmen, who earlier had been reduced to 10 men for the final 21 minutes following Liam Cullen’s dismissal for two bookable offences. The teams most recently met at the Liberty Stadium in October 2018 when Trevoh Chalobah’s 84th-minute header saw Town to what proved to be the only victory of the Paul Hurst era as the Blues beat Swansea 3-2 in a topsy-turvy game. A Janoi Donacien own goal put the Swans in front in the eighth minute as the home side dominated but Gwion Edwards and Freddie Sears gave Town an unlikely lead via goals in the 27th and 31st minutes. The Blues held on to their lead until the 79th minute when former and future loanee Bersant Celina lashed in an equaliser, but Town weren’t to be denied the three points and Chalobah headed his second of the season five minutes later to claim the three points. Saturday’s referee is John Busby from Oxfordshire, who has shown 96 yellow cards and one red in 23 games so far this season. The Blues have won the last four games he has taken charge of. His last Town match was the 3-1 final-day-of-the-season victory over a Fleetwood side featuring Burns, who scored in his final game before his move to the Blues, at Portman Road in May 2021, in which he booked only two of the visitors. He also too control of the 2-0 home victory over Blackpool in February the same year in which he yellow-carded Myles Kenlock, Luke Matheson and two Tangerines. The scoreline was also 2-0 to Town when he was in charge of Town when Rochdale were at Portman Road in September 2020 when he booked Jon Nolan and two visiting players. Prior to that he refereed the 2-1 win at Tranmere in January 2020 when he showed yellow cards to Emyr Huws and Will Norris as well as three home players. Busby was also in the man in the middle for the Blues’ 2-0 defeat to Rotherham at Portman Road in October 2019 when he booked Gwion Edwards and three Millers. Squad from: Hladky, Walton, Clarke, Davis, Humphreys, Tuanzebe, Woolfenden, Edmundson, Burgess, Morsy (c), Travis, Luongo, Ball, Burns, Chaplin, Broadhead, Harness, Aluko, Hutchinson, Sarmiento, Moore, Al-Hamadi, Jackson.
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