Swansea City vs Middlesbrough
Date: 2nd April 2017
Kick off: 1:30 UK/ 2:30 CET
Venue: Liberty Stadium
The term ‘six-pointer’ is thrown around a lot these days. However, this game is definitely a ‘six pointer’ for both sides. Swansea City go into the game in the 17th place and just 3 points above safety. Swansea will be desperate for a win as it could see them move above Palace and 6 points clear of the drop. Middlesbrough, like Swansea, will be desperate for a win. Boro are currently 19th in the table, 5 points away from safety. A win for Boro could only see them move up to 18th but as they have a game in hand on Swansea if they were to win both games they could climb out of the relegation zone.
Swansea City
After sacking Bob Bradley last December and replacing him with Paul Clement, Swansea looked like they would move away from a relegation battle. Despite this, Swansea once again find themselves embroiled in a relegation battle after losing two key games to relegation rivals Hull and Bournemouth. This means a win against Boro is almost necessary if they want to stay out of the relegation zone.
Injury news: Angel Rangel will be out for the rest of the season. However, Swansea may be able to welcome back Kyle Naughton providing he is fit.
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough need to win this game. The last time Boro won a league game was in the reverse fixture against Swansea last December. Since then Boro have scored just 4 goals. The lack of goals has led to Aitor Karanka departing and Boro slipping to 19th in the league. Middlesbrough’s next three league games are against Swansea, Hull and Burnley and if they want to stand any chance of staying up they realistically need at least 6 points, preferably from Hull and Swansea.
Boro are still yet to confirm a replacement for Aitor Karanka but perhaps if temporary boss Steve Agnew picks up wins in the next few games he may be given the job full time. Middlesbrough did show some positives in their last game against Manchester United. After going 2-0 down, Agnew switched to 4-4-2 which lead to Boro scoring their first league goal for over 8 hours. Hopefully, for Boro’s sake, they deploy a similar system from the start of the game against Swansea in an attempt to pick up a valuable 3 points.
Injury news: George Friend will once again miss out due to a calf problem. Ayala returns from injury but Calum Chambers remains sidelined.
Head to head
The last time the two sides met on December 17th last year Middlesbrough stomped Swansea 3-0 at the Riverside.
Swansea and Middlesbrough have met 43 times since the two clubs began. Swansea have won 15 of the games. Middlesbrough narrowly edges Swansea out with 19 victories and the remaining 9 ended in draws.
Swansea have yet to beat Middlesbrough in a Premier league game, something they will hope to change on Sunday.
Predicted line-ups
Swansea XI: Fabianski, Naughton, Fernandez, Mawson, Kingsley, Cork, Ki Sung-yueng, Ayew, Sigurdsson, Carroll, Llorente
Middlesbrough XI: Valdes, Barragan, Gibson, Bernardo, Fabio, Stuani, Clayton, De Roon, Ramirez, Negredo, Gestede
Prediction
Neither team is in great form going into this game. But both teams really need a win from this game. Middlesbrough haven’t won since last year and Swansea have dipped in form. Therefore, expect this to be a close game. Also as Boro are a somewhat defensive side and are away from home, they will probably set up to defend and look to score on the counter. This will probably lead to a low scoring, tight game.
Prediction: 1-1
Odds
Swansea: 19/20
Draw: 12/5
Middlesbrough: 3/1
