Swansea City Match Preview

West Ham United remained top of the Sky Bet Championship table due to their second-half comeback against bitter rivals Millwall back on 19 September but after Swansea City’s win away at newly-promoted Lincoln City later that day, the Swans took over top spot and have remained there ever since.

After earning three points of their own against Lincoln City at The ProAmpac Stadium just three days ago, the Hammers know that if they could follow their most recent victory up today, then they will close the gap to just a point but they face a tough task this afternoon, as Nuno Espírito Santo takes his side to South Wales.

Wednesday’s 6-0 win will have alerted the home fans as to just how prolific the Irons can be in front of goal and they will do their utmost to maintain their unbeaten away record here.

Vítor Matos has had a great start with the Swans this season having lost just one of their ten league games. That defeat came against Southampton at St Mary’s back on 8 September, as Tonda Eckert’s side came from a goal down to win 3-1. The East Londoners have picked up results everywhere they been on the road this season so they will be looking to inflict a first home defeat of the season on their opponents.

The home side have the key advantage of having had one extra day’s preparation ahead of this game, as Espírito Santo’s men travelled back to East London following their midweek success. Swansea also had to travel for their fixture last time out, as they won 1-0 at Millwall, meaning both sides are in good form ahead of this encounter.

Remarkably, this is the first 3pm fixture that the Hammers have been involved in since their 3-0 triumph against Derby County in Stratford back on 5 September.

The Irons Head-Coach has some hard decisions to make ahead of this game, as he made four changes for the encounter against the Imps. Having said that though, it would come as no surprise if he did rotate again.

Kyle Walker-Peters, Tomáš Souček, Valentín Castellanos and Divine Mukasa were all benched. Whilst the quartet are looking to be restored to the starting line-up, Joël Piroe will be hopeful of retaining his place and starting against his former club, while Edvin Austbø will be hoping that his goal in midweek would have been enough to earn him a rare start.

As stated above, the match is a 3pm kick-off and the referee is Josh Smith.