The pride of south Wales is on the line on Sunday afternoon when the two biggest clubs in the country collide as Swansea City take on arch-rivals Cardiff City in a Sky Bet Championship match which is sure to invoke plenty of passion.
Swansea go into the match in the better position in the league table courtesy of their win over Preston last week. Cardiff now sit bottom of the table after the Saturday action so they’ll be keen to win here.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Football channel with the build-up to the derby beginning at 2.30pm ahead of the 3pm kick off in Swansea.
Swansea City
Swansea City went into the campaign looking for a much better season than they managed last term. To be fair, they made a bit of a mess of the early part of that campaign with a couple of highly questionable management appointments but they finally got the right man in Luke Williams and after a first pre-season under him optimism was high and they have already started to deliver on that with a couple of creditable performances.
They would probably have been a little disappointed to lose to Middlesbrough in their opening match when it took a late penalty to deny them but they bounced back to get the better of Preston last week and if they can win the derby they would be in a good position. The positive for Swansea would be that they are restricting their opposition to few chances but if you want to be critical there is improvement to come from them in attacking positions.
Cardiff City
I think it is fair to say that this isn’t the start to the campaign that Cardiff City were looking for. There were concerns around the Bluebirds heading into the season and their opening two matches certainly won’t have done anything to ease those doubts but I think given the recent transfer activity they are a bit of a work in progress, although it has to be said that they need to find a fair bit of improvement if they are to compete at the top end of the table.
Cardiff go into the match bottom of the Championship but we should remember that they have faced Sunderland and Burnley in their opening two matches and they were both in the top three in the table heading into this round of fixtures and generally looking pretty good. We probably shouldn’t judge them on those outings although it is never good when you get beat 5-0, however in the initial stages of the match with Burnley, Cardiff actually looked decent enough.
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Team News
Swansea City boss Luke Williams has confirmed that Joe Allen has been back to full training and he is in the squad for this match. New signing Nelson Abbey could make his Swans debut in the game but Andy Fisher remains out.
Erol Bulot had some positive team news at his pre-match press conference too when he confirmed that the injury picked up by Aaron Ramsey wasn’t too bad and he is in line to play here as are Callum O’Dowda, Calum Chambers and Anwar El Ghazi.
Betting
Swansea City have had the better of this derby in the last three seasons having won five of the last six matches but they feel like they are a little on the short side to me at a touch of odds on. It does have to be said that Cardiff City haven’t looked in great shape so far this season but I am aware that their two opponents do look like really good sides, better than what I think Swansea will turn out to be when this division begins to settle down a bit.
I think the better bet here could be under 2.5 goals. Both matches last season ended under this total and if there is an issue for Cardiff then it certainly comes in scoring goals, something they haven’t done in the league yet this season. You would imagine after conceding five they will have worked on their defensive structure and while Swansea are improving I’m not convinced they are going to be a particularly free scoring side. I wouldn’t say both defences will necessarily dominate this one but the competitive nature of it can see this one stay under 2.5 goals.
Tips
Back Under 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.93 with Unibet
