Preview | Birmingham City v Swansea City
Swansea City round off the second section of the Championship campaign with a trip to St Andrew's as they face Birmingham City in their final game before the November international break.
The Swans have taken three points from six after an emphatic win over Blackburn and a last-gasp defeat at Portsmouth in midweek.
They meet a Birmingham side who have been on an outstanding run of form, winning five of their last six games.
Team news
The Swans will make a late decision on the availability of Stephen Welsh after a scan revealed no significant injury following his forced withdrawal at Fratton Park in midweek.
Jisung Eom and Moussa Yeo are fit and available, while Melker Widell is a doubt with a hamstring problem.
Stephen Eustaquio, Ronald and Cameron Burgess are all sidelined for the Swans.
Pre-match views
Vitor Matos: “We have already coped with teams who pose a physical challenge. Lincoln and Millwall are games where we have seen these types of teams, who are more vertical and more direct.
“When games are like that, it's hard to control them. It’s harder for us to control the game and bring it back to where we like to have it. But we have already shown that we can do that.
“What we need is to keep focusing on these small things and try to improve them because that will allow us to stay stable when these types of teams are strong, and then, with time, start to generate the type of game that we want again.
“What we need is to try to stay calm, focus on what we can do better and what we need to do to be competitive, and then, step by step, stay around this group of teams and see how it ends."
Chris Davies: "I want us to bring everything that we have been doing in these last several games.
"We have set a real template for what we want to be, we've faced some difficult opponents and overcome a lot of them.
"I want us to bring all that to the table. It's a big push for us, there's some players that have been going to their limits in the last few weeks, physically, mentally, pushing themselves to the max and the break comes at a good time to reset and renew.
"But we will certainly have the energy for this one. It's important that we try and bring it all to the table, that energy, intensity, that same quality and attitude. We are going to need all that to give us a chance of getting a result."
Meet the officials
Anthony Backhouse will be the man with the whistle when Swansea City head to Birmingham City on Saturday afternoon (3pm).
Backhouse has been an EFL referee since 2017, having become the first Cumbrian official in more than 40 years to be added to the EFL Referee List.
His career highlights to date include taking charge of the 2017 National League play-off Final, serving as fourth official for the 2022 FA Trophy Final and refereeing the FA Vase Final in 2023.
Backhouse has already officiated a Swans match this season, that coming in our 2-1 triumph at Lincoln City back in September.
On Saturday, he will be assisted by Shaun Hudson and George Byrne, while Edward Duckworth will serve as the fourth official.
Remember the last time?
Swansea City cruelly saw their unbeaten run ended as Lyndon Dykes' stoppage-time header denied them a deserved point on the road against Birmingham City at St Andrew's.
The Swans looked set to make it eight games without defeat until the Scotland international glanced home in the third minute of nine added on at the end of a full-blooded affair in the west Midlands.
The visitors had given as good as they got against a Blues team unbeaten at home in the league since April 2024, and they had Zan Vipotnik’s first-half strike ruled out by what looked to be an incorrectly-raised offside flag.
The Slovenian also sent another opportunity over the bar, while Zeidane Inoussa was denied by Ryan Allsop.
At the other end, Lawrence Vigouroux made key saves to keep out Marvin Ducksch and Kyogo Furuhashi, with Ben Cabango also making an incredible stoppage-time block from Furuhashi with the Swansea keeper down injured.
But the visitors were denied a share of the spoils at the death.
Prime numbers
3 - Swansea have lost just three of their last 10 away games at Birmingham, winning three and drawing four in that period.
10 - The Swans are winless in their last 10 league games against Birmingham City, last beating the Blues in June 2020.