Swansea City v Barnsley PRE Match Review Friday, 18th Dec 2020 15:12 The Swans will look to return to winning ways today with the visit of a resurgent Barnsley to the Liberty stadium in a game Steve Cooper knows is a must win to stay in contention for an automatic promotion place. This league continues to throw up very interesting results, it’s not as if it’s just because of the challenges of the 2020 lockdown, the championship has always been a tight league to compete in. This is the swans third season in this league and overall most will see a decent improvement, especially this time around. Steve Cooper is capturing the eye of many football followers, he has a keen interest in possession football with a clear methodology that every player must sign up to. It’s working to an extent, but it’s clubs like Barnsley and as we saw against Luton that can challenge any strategy implemented by Cooper. Neil Warnock cracked it in the away fixture recently as did Derby County last time out. However, we will soon see if last Wednesdays result was a result of poor tactics or players failing to follow the game plan through tiredness or other reasons. Cooper is positive, he knows what was missing on Wednesday, and after a defeat a quick turn around game like this will work wonders if three points are picked up. With 27 year old Joe Piggot again linked for a January move from AFC Wimbledon as swans fans again talk of another striker to add that final piece in the promotion jigsaw, all eyes have to be on Viktor Gyökeres who has little if any opportunity of any game time since his Brighton loan move. To that end, Steve Cooper would be better off bolstering his squad with some fresh faces in the January window to boost the club’s surge for promotion. With Swansea just managing 21 goals in 19 league fixtures in the Championship so far, the manager should surely have an eye on some potential attacking targets. Swansea need some transfer spark in January to keep their promotion hopes alive and a potential deal for Joe Pigott could help ease the club’s goalscoring issues. The 27-year-old has been in red-hot form for Wimbledon in League One this season, registering 9 goals and 4 assists in 16 appearances so far. This weekends game Tale of the tape Last 7 Swansea v Barnsley results: 29/12/2019 (Championship) DREW Swansea 0-0 Barnsley Then there’s the away game last season which ended 1-1. 28/08/2012 (League Cup Second Round) WON Swansea (Danny Graham 24, Luke Moore 59, 88) 3-1 Barnsley (Bobby Hassell 69) 28/12/2010 (Championship) WON Swansea (Jermaine Easter 27) 1-0 Barnsley 17/04/2010 (Championship) WON Swansea (Ashley Williams 23, Shefki Kuqi 28, Darren Pratley 72) 3-1 Barnsley (Darren Moore 35) 09/12/2008 (Championship) DREW Swansea (Jason Scotland 66, 90) 2-2 Barnsley (Jon Macken 49, Jamal Campbell-Ryce pen 56) 29/08/2005 (League One) WON Swansea (Kevin McLeod 14, 90, Lee Trundle 58) 3-1 Barnsley (Jacob Burns 35) Overall Record: At Swansea: The swans have Marc Guehi back and he has impressed in every game since his loan move from Chelsea. Steve Cooper is positive and has a lot of dialogue with Chelsea, “ like we do with all the big clubs where we've got players on loan from," said Steve Cooper. "We're constantly sending reports back and video footage, or whatever the parent club requires. I have a good personal relationship with Chelsea through previous jobs. They're fully aware of how Marc is doing, and I think we're all benefiting from his time here, especially Marc, because I think he's getting great experience. You can really see him improving every week. "He's playing at a really high level. It's really good to see a 20-year-old, like [Ben] Cabango and like Joel [Latibeaudiere] when he played last week, to see 20-year-olds play centre-back in this league, and play as well as they are doing, personally I really enjoy seeing that."  Top form Guehi If Swansea want a Guehi signature made permanent they too would do well to consider their January options regards this fine player. The Liberty pitch will be completely replaced after this game after throwing up, quite literally some genuinely concerning questions about the surface of late. This means the Ospreys will move their fixtures to enable the refurbishment. The swans have to have the pitch in place for their next home game against Reading. Play off Final 2006 Barnsley point of view  The Reds are leaving the country again this weekend, but hoping for a better result against high-flying Swansea City. It's a long old journey on Saturday for Valérien Ismaël's in-form Reds outfit, a 500-mile round-trip to take on promotion chasers Swansea City in a 3pm kick-off. The Reds head south to the Welsh coast in good spirits, having won their last three league fixtures. Their come-from-behind victory in midweek against Preston North End propelled Ismaël's side into the top half of the Sky Bet Championship table. Second half goals from the captain, Alex Mowatt and later from substitute Victor Adeboyejo saw us run out 2-1 winners - for also - the third match in succession. It was the third win from five in which Barnsley had gone behind but fought back to win, showing a refreshing resilience about this current squad who are now a huge 12 points clear of the bottom three.  Against PNE however, there was a fifth booking of the season for Callum Styles and so the 'Bury Baggio' will not be heading to Wales this weekend as he serves a one-match suspension. This is likely to bring Clarke Oduor back into the starting lineup, who was arguably the Reds' standout player in this same fixture last term. Valérien will though be without Aapo Halme who suffered a toe injury in the Sheffield Wednesday victory last weekend and isn't likely to return until next year. But Jordan Williams is back in training after his lengthy spell on the sidelines, boosting the French boss in terms of defensive options in the absence of both the big Finn and our in-form but suspended left wing-back. We are currently on a 10-game winless streak in this fixture, and haven't scored a league goal at the Liberty Stadium since Darren Moore's header back in 2010 in a 3-1 defeat. That’s yer lot folks, we hope you have enjoyed this fact packed match review, please leave your thoughts below and join us on the Matchday football forum. Read the Matchday programme digitally and for free. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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