Swansea City vs Stoke City Preview: Team News, Prediction and More

Swansea City welcome Stoke City to the Liberty Stadium on Saturday for a crucial game in their quest to avoid relegation from the Premier League. The Swans sit in 18th place, and are two points off of safety, behind Hull City in 17th.

Paul Clement started life well at the Liberty Stadium, winning five out of eight his first fixtures, but Swansea haven’t won in their last six Premier League games. Stoke meanwhile head into this fixture on the back of a 3-1 win over Hull – thanks to goals from Marko Arnautovic, Peter Crouch, and Xherdan Shaqiri.

Team News

Crouch could start up front for Mark Hughes’ side, seeing that January signing Saido Berahino hasn’t scored in 10 appearances since signing from West Bromwich Albion.

Stoke will be pursuing a fourth consecutive top half finish in the Premier League, and they are currently in 11th place, only one point behind ninth place Southampton, and five behind eighth place West Brom.

Swansea will be without midfielders Wayne Routledge, who is out with an ongoing hernia problem, as well as Jack Cork, who picked up an ankle injury in the 1-0 defeat to West Ham for Saturday’s showdown. Swansea lost to Watford 1-0 in their last match, and will be desperate to turn their fortunes around as the business end of the season looms over them.

Paul Clement has labelled the Stoke match as a “must win” game for the Swans ?(BBC Sport): “With the position we are in, Stoke becomes a must win game. I’ve been asked a lot since I joined, ‘is that a must-win game?’ but there were still lots of games to play. Now the next game is huge. We have to win, we have to beat Stoke.”

Clement went on to say that he thinks that Swansea’s fans will play a big part in their push to avoid relegation: “The players know that, what we need is to embrace this pressure. When the pressure is gone, we won’t be able to stay in this league. So we have to continue to believe. We have three home games at the Liberty and with the fans’ support, hopefully it will be enough.”

Recent Games

Swansea have only one one of their last seven Premier League games against Stoke, who are looking to win consecutive games at the Liberty Stadium for the first time ever. Stoke won the return fixture in October 3-1 thanks to two goals from Wilfried Bony, and an Alfie Mawson own goal. Wayne Routledge scored Swansea’s goal.

With both defences looking fairly frail, and quality in both attacks, their could be goals galore in this highly anticipated Premier League clash.

Prediction: Swansea City 3-2 Stoke City