Swansea City VS Nottingham Forest, home keeping three clean sheets

Match Time：2/18/2021 03:00 Thursday  (GMT+8)

England Championship --  Swansea City   VS   Nottingham Forest

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Swansea City's automatic promotion hopes from the Championship remain in their own hands as they prepare for Wednesday's visit of Nottingham Forest.  

 

The Swans are four points behind second-placed Brentford and five adrift of Norwich City, though they have two games in hand to play on both sides.  

 

Forest enter the midweek round of fixtures 16th in the table, meanwhile, five points above the relegation zone.  

 

Match preview   

Swansea's away match with Sheffield Wednesday was called off at the weekend, meaning that Steve Cooper's men have had a full week's rest ahead of this clash with Forest.  The Swans' most recent outing ended in defeat, though there is certainly no shame in going down 3-1 to Manchester City - the continent's most in-form side - in the FA Cup.  

 

Cooper's focus is now on winning promotion to the top flight, three years after the Welsh side last competed at that level, and his side are in a great position to achieve that.  They are unbeaten in eight league matches, winning six of those, while at home it is 11 games without defeat, keeping a clean sheet in eight of those matches. 

 

Forest have a good recent record on their travels, however, having won three on the spin and gone five without defeat. That follows a run of five away losses in a row.  

 

The Reds drew 0-0 at home to Bournemouth on Saturday and have collected eight points from the last 12 on offer - a run that has allowed them to look up the division at long last.  

 

Chris Hughton's men lost the reverse meeting with Swansea 1-0 in November, but they have not lost two league games in a single season in this fixture since 1938-39. 

 

Forest have also kept five clean sheets in their last seven away league trips to Swansea, though they were thumped 5-1 at the Liberty Stadium in the FA Cup less than a month ago.  

 

Swansea City Championship form: DWWDWW 

Swansea City form (all competitions): WWDWWL  

Nottingham Forest Championship form: LLDWWD 

Nottingham Forest form (all competitions): WLDWWD  

 

Team News 

Cooper handed some of his fringe players a start against Man City, but the likes of Andre Ayew and Conor Hourihane should be back in the XI on Wednesday.  

 

Hourihane has been in superb form since joining on loan from Aston Villa in the January window, scoring in all three of his league appearances.  Even with an additional few days' rest following the Sheffield Wednesday postponement, Steven Benda, Korey Smith and Liam Cullen all remain absent.  

 

As for Forest, Samba Sow and Harry Arter are among their absentees for this trip to South Wales.  Hughton did not make a single substitute in the goalless draw with Bournemouth, suggesting that he is happy with his first-choice XI.  However, Yuri Ribeiro is pushing left-back Gaetan Bong for a starting spot here.  

 

Striker Glenn Murray has scored four goals in his last five league appearances against Swansea.  

 

Swansea City possible starting lineup: 

Woodman; Naughton, Bennett, Guehi; Roberts, Fulton, Hourihane, Grimes, Bidwell; Ayew, Lowe  

 

Nottingham Forest possible starting lineup: 

Samba; Christie, Worrall, Figueiredo, Ribeiro; Cafu, Garner; Knockaert, Krovinovic, Lolley; Murray    

 

Swansea City 2-1 Nottingham Forest