Swansea City ended a 3-match sequence without a win in the Championship on Wednesday night when they secured a valuable three points with a 2-1 win away at Charlton Athletic to send the Swans top of the division.
📺 The winning moment...⚽️🥅🔥 Those reactions! 👏 pic.twitter.com/OhS6c8kXXE— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) October 4, 2019
📺 The winning moment...⚽️🥅🔥 Those reactions! 👏 pic.twitter.com/OhS6c8kXXE
A 1-0 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest followed by back-to-back draws with Bristol City and Reading had threatened to undo the previous good work done by Steve Cooper’s side, but The Swans bounced back in midweek to register their sixth win of this new Championship season.
Swansea haven’t won either of their last two matches at their Liberty Stadium but they know they can heap further misery upon a beleaguered Stoke City side on Saturday afternoon in what seems to be the perfect match for Swansea to return to winning ways on home turf.
The Swans started their season in explosive fashion at home this term, winning their first three matches on the trot with victories over Hull City, Preston North End and Birmingham City, and Cooper will be desperate for his side to maintain their position at the top of the Championship with a win on Saturday.
Onto Stoke City, and time must surely now be running out on manager Nathan Jones’s tenure at The Potters as they were dealt another defeat in midweek, this time by fellow strugglers, Huddersfield Town, as Stoke lost 1-0 at their bet365 Stadium.
This loss has now left Stoke bottom of the Championship and 3 points adrift of second from bottom club, Huddersfield Town, and a further 6 points adrift of Reading and the safety of 21st place ahead of this tough trip to Wales this Saturday.
Jones has managed to inspire his Stoke side to just 4 wins out of the last 34 matches in charge and another defeat this Saturday would surely seal his fate after being given an inordinate amount of time at the helm of The Potters.
To put this into context, former Stoke manager, Gary Rowett, was shown the door after a couple of poor results in early January with Stoke sitting in 14th place and Rowett had achieved a 31% win-rate from just 29 matches in charge.
Fast-forward to present day and Stoke still remain without a win in the second tier with Jones possessing a meagre 11% win-rate, but to date, has been in charge for 34 matches.
The visitors have lost 8 of their first 10 matches of this new Championship season overall, while it’s 3 defeats from their first 4 matches on the road this season, and the bigger picture shows just 1 away win out of their last 19 matches on their travels.
Forebet predicts a Swansea City win here.