TALKING TACTICS: Swans v Hull City
4th April
Continuing our partnership with football statistics website WhoScored.com, here is a preview of this afternoon's home clash with Hull City.
Swansea chase a Barclays Premier League double over Hull after their victory at the KC Stadium back in December, when Ki Sung-Yueng was the hero with the only goal of the game. The Korean was the WhoScored man of the match that day with a rating of 8.86.
WhoScored.com uses over 200 raw statistics to calculate player ratings for every player across Europe, based on their statistics live and during the action.
Another player who has outdone many of his peers of late is centre-back Federico Fernandez. According to WhoScored.com's ratings, Fernandez is one of the Premier League's 'in-form' defenders, having registered scores of 7.38 v Burnley, 7.67 v Tottenham and 8.15 vs Aston Villa - a game in which he was named man of the match.
With an average rating of 7.04 over the course of the season, Fernandez is Swansea's fifth-highest rated player, excelling thanks to an exceptional reading of the game that has seen him develop a strength, according to WhoScored.com's database of statistics, of 'ball interception'.
Meanwhile, his rating over his last three games (7.73) is the third best of Premier League centre-backs to make at least three appearances over that time frame, behind only Arsenal's hugely-impressive Gabriel Paulista (7.99) and the in-form Ciaran Clark (7.89) who, despite a commendable display, couldn't keep Bafe Gomis out in his last match.
Last time Hull won at Swansea was in 2004 when, extraordinarily, the teams met in League Two. Both sides have come a long way since then, but it is the Swans that have progressed further, and go into this clash as favourites.
*WhoScored.com is a unique website and one of the fastest growing in the sports industry, specialising in the in-depth analysis of detailed football data. Provided with unique stats, they compile and create comprehensive analysis on the major European divisions, including live match stats and player ratings. You can follow @WhoScored and their editor-in-chief @alitweedale on Twitter.
