Swansea City team news appears here later as they take on Middlesbrough at the Swansea.com. (5:30pm) Here are the thoughts of Rhys Clayton pre match.

⚽️ TEAM NEWS : Swansea City: Lawrence VIgouroux; Sam Parker, Ben Cabango (captain), Cameron Burgess, Josh Tymon; Jay Fulton, Goncalo Franco, Liam Cullen; Jisung Eom, Melker Widell; Zan Vipotnik.

Substitutes: Andy Fisher, Marko Stamenic, Malick Yalcouye, Gustavo Nunes, Leo Walta, Ricardo Santos, Joel Ward, Adam Idah, Ronald.

This is the "prize you could have won" game. Kim Hellberg did great work at Hammarby, building a progressive, attacking team, and had caught the attention of the club's hierarchy. Unfortunately for the Swans, we were not the only suitors.

It is impossible to know how he would have done, but I am sure he would have enjoyed working with some of the attacking talent in the squad.

Nevertheless, his record at Middlesbrough is good, but not great. 24 games so far, half of them victories, five draws and seven losses. He is averaging 1.7 points, which would get you to 78 points over a season. The lowest points tally for second place since 2022 is 88. Burnley finished on 100 points last season. 78 would not get you near automatic promotion these days.

Which brings me to our man. Matos has had one more game than Hellberg, playing 25 games with a pleasing statistical 11 wins, 3 draws and 11 losses. This neatly sums up his time at the Swans so far, when you consider the majority of those wins were at home, and the majority of the losses away from home. There have been some memorable victories but also extremley poor losses. Even though this has brought criticism, the most important point to remember is how badly Swansea were doing when he joined, and we now sit comfortably in 16th, 13 points above the drop.

It is very hard to predict the game today. Mostly because two teams who had nothing to play for produced a cracker last Friday, but today one team is fighting for everything and we only play for pride. Middlesbrough beat the Swans 1-0 on the opening day of the season. They have been a constant presence in the top two ever since. In the middle of February, they lost the key clash against Coventry 3-1. Since that game, Coventry soared away, and now sit 11 points clear. While Boro have only won twice, with four draws and two losses. Crucially, one of those losses was last Friday at home to Millwall, who leapfrogged them into second place.

One of the reasons for their dip in form is the lack of goals from Morgan Whittaker. The ex-Swan never settled in SA1, and said some antagonising things to wind up the fanbase. The first half of the season brought an impressive 11 goals, but he has not scored since January. He missed the Millwall game with injury and is also a doubt for today's match.

In the eight seasons since their relegation, they have only made it to the play-offs twice. There is a longing to join football revival in the North-East. To miss out on the top two would be a disaster, and the pressure would be huge in the play-offs. If the Swans continue as they did on Friday, then this could be an entertaining game. As we know, we have defensive frailties so there could be goals. I will go for a 2-2.

Enjoy the game, and happy Easter, Swans fans.

⚽️ Read our match day morning and full game profile below.
Swans v Boro LATEST

It has saved lives.

Artwork by Swansea Independent