Swansea City take on Birmingham City in their first competitive fixture of the new season tomorrow. It’s League Cup time and for the first time ever it’s the curtain raiser for the season.

It all kicks off at the .com at 3pm although it has hardly captured the imagination of the Swansea faithful. The Swans are expecting an attendance in and around 9,000 with 1,900 or so tickets sold by Birmingham City. Surely now there has to be a bigger walk up than expected with prices low and the weather good ?

Ross Stewart won’t be involved according to head coach, Vitor Matos, he needs more time to get to optimum fitness. We can then potentially expect to see Zān Vipotnik involved and most certainly now Adam Idah. The new players we think should be included, every game together going into a very new season is crucial. It has to be a strong side which can win the game and move on to making it into the next round - and really then the Swans will be just ninety minutes from a potential money spinner. We saw that last season.

Vitor has already given his views on what has been forty eight hours of very good communication by the club. On the game he stated Ross Stewart will need some time to adapt, his medical on Wednesday took a very long time for numerous reasons. As we have stated before, you can’t fail a medical as a professional footballer, the club are given the results and make a judgement with expert advice reviewing them. Hence the issues for Ricardo Santos when he tried to move to Reading. We covered that below.

⚽️ How a medical works

So this call on Ross Stewart eventually ended up with the Swans making a positive decision. He will need to up his fitness levels a lot and that will take a bit of time. Hence his non inclusion tomorrow. Matos explained yesterday it is a step by step process. The Portuguese head coach also (and not for the first time) impressed upon the fact he will choose his teams based on what the options are, with a lot of the new boys needing more game time we will see them surely ? It’s pretty clear that Andre Almeida, despite an agreement to buy the player with Valencia isn’t in the frame at the moment. Matos has already mentioned that enough has been said on the matter, and we know no conditions were placed on anyone timeframe wise to get this sorted out by a particular time and date.

Fall Seck (below) was another player Matos really couldn’t be moved on. What we know is that his club Randers have in a way gazumped the Swans allowing the news of Swansea interest to encourage other clubs to come in. There isn’t a German club ‘that we are aware of’ but we do know the interest in the midfielder has surged since the Swans were reported as agreeing a deal in principle. Seck is still interested and happy to come to Swansea for a number of reasons, not least the solid platform the club can put him on to advance his career in England. No other league structure is watched more. This could slip away.

Clubs hijacking Swansea deals isn’t new.

Matos describes the opposition tomorrow as progressive and stable and he is right - their pre season has demonstrated a very competent team. Judging by their main forum they still possess a lot of arrogance and rudeness - even though they had a poor season last time out with the money spent.

There is a caveat to that and the YouTube below is an exceptional and sensible view on the game from a Blues perspective. A channel not hiding behind anonymity and we highly recommend you give this pre match a listen for sensible football talk.

With all that money being spent, head coach Chris Davies won’t be there for that long if there’s a repeat of last season. Paik Seung-ho, Demarai Gray, Marvin Ducksch, Taylor Gardner-Hickman and Marc Leonard (def out) will only be risked if fully fit, Gray is a danger and seems to always perform against the Swans. Both clubs finished on equal points last campaign which most certainly wasn’t in the Blues plans. Both have recruited this summer, Swansea more so with some very exciting moves within this transfer window, plus last seasons strike force looks available with Stewart not ready for game time just yet.

You would expect changes and Andrew Fisher (below) in goal wouldn’t be a surprise, new loan signing with an option to buy, Tiago Patente might be trusted in at left back and Cameron Burgess should start due to his lack of game time to date. He came in as captain last Saturday against CD Leganés and was loud and combative. That leaves a toss up between Ben Cabango, Stephen Welsh and Filip Lissa as his partner. Lissa can also operate very effectively at right back but maybe Josh Key will start there ? The midfield will be another area that needs looking at. Does Matos go with Leo Walta, Melker Widell (who is reported as being superb in training) and Mark Stamenić ? Or does he tap into Jay Fulton to start ? The wing options are Eom, Inoussa, Ronald, Joseph Opoku and Moussa Yeo. The obvious choices are Opoku and Yeo but again Eom hasn’t played that much club football. We think Adam Idah will start.

It’s not a conundrum here at the Indy, it’s what we are all about, good football chat and reporting offering a sensible rapport for genuine Swans fans to read and respond to in a safe environment. Thanks for supporting the Indy, and in turn the brain tumour charity - a Swans fans website which is proven as the biggest and most read, all day every day.

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