Ricardo Santos to miss Coventry trip at start of busy festive schedule

Swansea City head coach Vitor Matos will be without Ricardo Santos for the Boxing Day trip to Coventry City, but otherwise has a fully-fit squad to select from.

Cape Verde international Santos, who missed the opening months of the season after suffering a knee injury in a pre-season friendly at Cheltenham, has picked up a hip problem and will be unavailable to take on the Sky Blues.

But everyone else, other than Manuel Benson who is away at the African Cup of Nations, is available for selection at the start of a run of four games in nine days.

“Everyone is available apart from Ricardo,” said Matos.

“He just has something that is being assessed regarding a hip problem. That is still being accessed and then we will see how it goes

“Of course, this is a busy period but there are two faces to the coin. On the one hand, recovery is very important, and you want to speed up the recovery but also use the games as a way to improve and learn.

“Secondly, rotation can allow you to have more freshness in the team, but you also need to be careful not to lose some of the consistency in terms of the principles and dynamics of how we want to play.

“It has to be at the right moments, and there can always be injuries or illnesses that you might need to consider as well.

“So it is about us all making the effort we need to be ready for each game and to maximise every pre-match and post-match period.”