Swansea City host Wycombe Wanderers at the Liberty Stadium in defining circumstances for both

Embed from Getty Images

Steve Cooper’s Swansea host strugglers Wycombe, with the result important in the play-off and relegation battles.

Contrasting styles, budgets and personnel have produced contrasting seasons for the two locking horns on Saturday lunchtime.

Swansea’s highest-paid player Andre Ayew reportedly earns £80,000 a week. Wycombe’s total reported weekly wage bill comes in at around £17,000 less than this.

The Championship’s underdogs, despite their financial disparities, haven’t disgraced themselves in their debut campaign in the second tier.

They may be rock bottom with little likelihood of survival, but Gareth Ainsworth’s Chairboys have clearly competed when many tipped them for one of the lowest tallies in the league’s history.

Swansea too have enjoyed what has been an excellent follow-up to Steve Cooper’s initial campaign, sitting in third and can further cement their place in the top six.

A run of poor form, featuring a dismal Derby day defeat to rivals Cardiff, saw Swansea fall calamitously out of the race for automatic promotion.

Two wins out of two since – a dismantling of both Millwall and Sheffield Wednesday – have given them a potential pre-playoff boost which carries them in good stead for returning to the top flight.

Match Facts

Andre Ayew and Jamal Lowe scored twice as Swansea won away at Adams Park in September.

Wycombe are winless against the Swans since 2000, but they have only met four times in that period.

Swansea have their best defensive record at this level since their promotion campaign in 2010/11 under Brendan Rodgers – 21 clean sheets to the previous best of 20.

Although they’ve only won one of their last six Championship away games, Wycombe won 3-0 at Rotherham last time out on the road. They’ve picked up seven points from their last four games.

Team News

Swansea will be without young centre-back Ben Cabango after breaching COVID protocols, but Steve Cooper is hopeful for the return of Liam Cullen ahead of schedule from his ankle injury.

After recently changing to a 4-3-3, Cooper will likely stick with Ayew, Lowe and Wayne Routledge in triad.

Wycombe have a few more injury issues, with Welshman Joe Jacobson, Dominic Gape, Ryan Tafazolli and Jordan Obita all unavailable.

Adebayo Akinfenwa was a fan favourite at the Liberty Stadium – he even scored the first competitive goal after the Swans’ left the Vetch field – but he’s expected to be on the bench behind Uche Ikpeazu and Admiral Muskwe.

Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt

[column size=”1/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”2824″ heading=”Swansea” heading_type=”timeline” /][/column]/][/column] [column size=”1/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”10″ cats=”2854″ heading=”Wycombe” heading_type=”timeline” /][/column] [/columns]