Swans head coach, Vitor Matos had an interesting pre match gathering this week and possibly put paid to Malick Yalcouyé’s immediate involvement this weekend. Of course that would depend on how you view the words of the Portuguese who is already seeing more and more about his task ahead.

On Malick he talked about ‘forcing his way’ into his selections by working hard and getting noticed. That was in response to a specific question on Malick put to the new head coach. On the chances of current loan players being recalled, there was the general answer of ‘anything can happen’ He also referenced the other three loan players stating he didn’t know whether they would be at the club or not come January.

We covered this yesterday.

⚽️ —> What more can the club do ?

The club are now in a state of limbo with the Football Association in their quest to get governing body endorsement for their three intended coaches to join Vitor at Swansea City. This has been an issue for over two weeks. The process now is at the appeal stage, the Swans have made one last effort to appoint Tozé Mendes, Diogo Medeiros and Goncalo Ricca. The reasons why they were engaged and verbally appointed by the club without an obvious exercise in checking their background hasn’t been answered. There are a number of routes that the Swans can go down and now they have thrown everything at this appeal. An unsure Vitor Matos was asked about this yesterday and he really didn’t seem certain on how this would all go. This isn’t right, it’s a bit of a shambles all round. Again the fans need clarification, they need to have some form of dialogue to reassure them. Nothing from America for weeks and weeks isn’t helping.

For us the whole loan player issue hasn’t been handled at all well by ‘whoever’ since the summer. None of them getting a semi permanent spot at the club in the first eleven is a pointless loan. Malick Yalcouyé, Kaelan Casey, Manuel Benson and Ishé Samuels-Smith all look hung out to dry at the moment. The more inquisitive may even suggest it’s a now a two way thing, the clubs will recall them if they are not played. However, Casey really should be in the first eleven. Maybe Vitor has noticed the fact he is a more accomplished player and in better form than Cameron Burgess ?

During Vitor’s pre match conversations he mentioned that the team need to know how to manage a situation of being 2-0 up. Hopefully that doesn’t mean regress into a defensive mode as that is pretty much how the team responded on Saturday at West Brom. It seems Vitor has a full line up to choose from and Malick is now fit and available for selection.

Oxford United on the other hand are on a consistent streak of results drawing against Middlesbrough and Norwich City and of course disposing of Ipswich 2-1 last weekend. Head coach Gary Rowett has already stated in no way will he let the Swans dictate the play tomorrow. Rage on line report, “Płacheta and Stan Mills have both done well enough to continue on the right wing and Filip Krastev and Tyler Goodrham have put in decent performance in the last couple of games for inclusion on the left. Luke Harris is likely to be given the ten position, although both Krastev and Ole Romeny have done well when playing there recently.

The U’s are one point ahead of the Swans in the relegation mix.

This means a win for the U’s would put them four points ahead of their hosts tomorrow, the current league table displays exactly what a predicament the club are in. No getting away from it, and then on Tuesday evening at 7:45pm it’s straight into another home game against Portsmouth.

Going into tomorrow’s game the previous six matches have returned one point. Go back further and it gets worse.

Joe Allen and Leon Britton continue to ‘pitch in’ with the Swans waiting on news from the home office not knowing where they stand and are basically just hoping. This fixture is massive. And deserves the full support of the Jack Army. Further match day build up to come.

Photographs Open Source : Artwork Swansea Independent

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