It’s Nottingham Forest v Swansea City this afternoon at the city ground, and for most forest fans they will see this as the biggest game of the season so far. If they win there will be others, especially when they face Bournemouth on Tuesday night. But for now it’s today, and all that matters is today, and this championship fixture.
Steve Cooper won’t have Lewis Grabban in his squad as he recovers from a hamstring strain and there are other question marks on his squads fitness. "Grabbs has done his hamstring. It’s still settling down, so it’s a little bit inconclusive in terms of the actual time the medics are committing to him being unavailable for,” Cooper said, after his team’s 1-0 triumph at Fulham. "He won’t play in the games up until Hull, that’s for sure. Hopefully I’ll have more of a definitive diagnosis later in the week. We deal with injuries as they come. We’ve picked up a couple over recent weeks, with the guys at the top end of the pitch. I don’t want to say we’ve got injuries again from this one, but a couple of the lads have come off with knocks. If we have, it’s unfortunate, but we get on with it.”
Keinan Davis (hamstring) and Max Lowe (groin) are already sidelined. Tuesday’s victory at Fulham has also taken its toll, with Sam Surridge (groin), Jack Colback (glute) and goalscorer Philip Zinckernagel (kick on the ankle) all with a question mark over their availability for the weekend, having been substituted at Craven Cottage. All will face fitness tests this morning.
Ben Cabango is out until next season by all accounts
Swansea City won’t have Ben Cabango available after being injured by Jamal Lowe against Bournemouth on Tuesday. This means a bit of a headache for Russell Martin with Kyle Naughton and Cyrus Christie the only real remaining defensive players he would like to choose from. Ryan Bennett according to the swans boss won’t play, his time at Swansea is over so he may turn to defensive loanee Finley Burns, but he hasn’t seen that much action of late. The mysterious non involvement of Nathanael Ogbeta since proving his fitness would possibly help Martin, but he hasn’t played a full game since signing from Shrewsbury Town in January.
Speculation as to his non inclusion has moved from him not being suitable for Russell Martin’s plans to being a signing thrusted upon him by Mark Allen at the very last minute of the transfer window. Mark Allen has been relieved of his post as sporting director by CEO Julian Winger amidst claims he has failed at many levels to fulfil his terms of employment at the club. These rumours haven’t been dismissed despite nothing concrete from Swansea City to date other than he has left.
They have also been reported in the national media.
That said, Ogbeta is available, and with limited resources could slot in at left wing back. In recent weeks Martin seems to have preferred Hannes Wolf who looks far more dangerous in a more central role than in that position. If that’s the case we can expect Flynn Downes in some form of defensive role with Christie and Naughton but it’s far from satisfactory. Ryan Manning can fill in as a utility defender, and that coukd well be the case today. It’s makeshift and really does expose the swans to all manner of issues if Forest press hard as expected today.
They need the points.
Russell Martin has been linked to Watford over the past twenty four hours, but the soon to be relegated club would certainly be an albatross if he took the job. "It’s the first I've heard of it," said the Swansea boss when asked about the links to Watford. "I’ve said to you all along, I'm in a job I’m absolutely loving in a place I’m loving living in and my family are really happy. The coaching staff we have and the way we’ve been embraced by everyone here, we’re really happy. We’re enjoying building something, we knew it was going to take some time. It would be crazy to even consider doing anything else at the minute. I’ll just control what we can control, which is how we work, how we feel about what we’re doing, how we feel about each other, how we treat people here and the rest is just noise.”
Steve Cooper sees this as just another championship game, well let’s see come 5pm today as the fixture is now completely sold out. It kicks off at 3pm.
Teams later on Swansea Independent