Monk: Players are relishing United clash

The Swans welcome Louis van Gaal's side to SA1 with the visitors having lost just once in their last 15 league games - a 1-0 defeat against rivals Manchester City in early November.

Since then United have improved significantly and they sit third in the Premier League table going into the weekend's fixtures.

Swansea, by contrast, have won just once in their last seven league matches but inflicted a first defeat on United this season with a 2-1 victory at Old Trafford on the opening day of the campaign.

"That feels like a long time ago," said Monk. "But it was a fantastic day and the pleasing thing for me is that we won the game on merit.

"We put in a great performance and it was a superb start to the season for us. But they (Manchester United) have changed a lot since then.

"They have climbed the table and are in a good position. They have world-class players and I'm sure they are going to go from strength to strength as the season progresses.

"They can mix it up and change their style of play accordingly. It is a massive challenge for us but we'll relish it."

The Swans have enjoyed a break in the fixture calendar due to their FA Cup exit last month, with Saturday's game being the first since they tasted defeat against West Brom on February 11.

That loss at the Hawthorns ten days ago meant that Monk's side have been back on the training ground in preparation for the visit of United.

"We've used this period just to try and re-focus," said Monk. "We have worked on things we wanted to improve on and perhaps in the last 4-5 weeks we haven't performed to the levels that we're accustomed to.

"We haven't been as consistent as we would have liked, but every team goes through a spell like that in this league. Hopefully that was ours and we now want to finish the season strongly.

"The focus for me has been to get the players to want more and try to push on. We've talked about it a lot since the West Brom game and all the players are raring to go now."