Preview | Bristol City v Swansea City (Emirates FA Cup)
Swansea City travel to Ashton Gate for the second time this term as they face Bristol City in the third round of the Emirates FA Cup.
The two sides are in similar form in the Championship over eight games, however, the Swans two best performances of that run have come in their past two matches against promotion-chasing Watford and Burnley.
Last term, both the Swans and the Robins exited the competition in the third round with Bristol suffering a 1-0 home defeat to Fulham in extra-time, while the Swans were beaten 3-2 by Southampton at home in a tie which also went to extra-time.
Team News
Morgan Whittaker is not available for selection as he has already featured in this competition for loan-club Plymouth Argyle.
He was a half-time substitute in the Pilgrims 5-1 away defeat to Grimsby Town in the FA Cup first-round.
Liam Walsh continues his recovery from a long-term shoulder injury.
There are no other injury concerns for Russell Martin.
Pre-match views
Russell Martin:
"The cup is exciting for fans, staff and players. It’ll be a really good cup tie and we’ll have a lot of fans there. It’ll be a great atmosphere, I think.
"We might look a bit different on Sunday to how we’ve looked recently, but we’ve been really pleased with how the players have been able to adapt to different shapes.
"We will look to bring the aggression that we’ve had in the last two games and take it into the cup, which the game will probably bring anyway because it’s a cup match against a side just down the road.
"We’ll see how the players train, have another discussion about Bristol City and the threats they pose and we’ll take it from there."
Nigel Pearson:
"I'm not going to mess too much with the team selection for Sunday.
"We need to get a win, for lots of different reasons and off the back of the last two performances, which have been really good. We've been a bit unlucky not to win at least one of those games.
"We want to give the fans a winning home performance which shows our intent for 2023."
Remember the last time?
The Swans last journey to Bristol City in the FA Cup was on November 26 1996. Having drawn with the Robins at home 10 days earlier, a team including Roger Freestone, Kris O’Leary and Kwame Ampadu made the journey down the M4 to face the Robins in the replay.
It was a tie that was decided inside the first 30 seconds of play with Aussie striker Paul Agostino scoring the only goal of the match almost straight from kick-off.
While the goal was the only noteworthy moment of the first half, the second was better for the visitors who had a number of efforts cleared off the line, though it was the off-the-ball incidents which threated to dominate the tie with the Swans players and coaching staff taking exception to the home side’s efforts to slow the game down and frustrations threatening to spill over.
Interestingly, Agostino scored five FA Cup goals in the 1996-97 campaign, bagging four in the next round against St Albans to take his tally to five. The competition’s top scorer that term netted six.
Prime Numbers
1 – Goals are generally hard to come by at Ashton Gate for the Swans. They’ve only managed to score more than one goal at Bristol City once since 1994.
5 – Despite the above stat, the Swans have avoided defeat in five of their last six trips to the ground.
100 – The 2022-23 FA Cup competition marks Swansea City 100th appearance in the competition. They are the only team hitting that milestone this season.