TALKING TACTICS: Tottenham Hotspur v Swans
4th March
Continuing our partnership with football statistics website WhoScored.com, here is a preview of tonight's trip to Tottenham Hotspur (7.45pm).
As predicted in this column last week, the Swans came away from Turf Moor with all three points last Saturday, making it back-to-back wins to go with the hugely impressive victory over Manchester United the week before. A tricky trip to White Hart Lane now beckons, but going by recent form there is good reason to predict another win for Garry Monk's men.
Swansea's two-match winning streak is the third longest by any team at present in the Premier League, behind only Arsenal and Liverpool (three each), highlighting just how great the level of competition is in this league. It is extremely difficult to build up a run of wins and Swansea deserve credit for managing to yet again put together consecutive wins; something some teams haven't managed all season.
The win over Burnley took the Swans into eighth, with Lukasz Fabianski earning the WhoScored.com man of the match award after another fine display. His performance earned him a rating of 8.35 in the website's rating system, which takes into account over 200 raw statistics to calculate an in-play score for every player.
There is little doubting that Fabianski has been a fantastic signing for the side, and he has been one of the best goalkeepers in the league. He is, in fact, behind only Sunderland's Costel Pantilimon (7.21) in WhoScored.com's rankings, having maintained a rating of 7.04 over his 26 appearances this term - eight more than Pantilimon has had to.
His clean sheet at the weekend was his tenth of the season, ranking him third in the Premier League in that regard behind only Fraser Forster (12) and Ben Foster (11). The organisational skills he has have been integral to the team, and the whole defence deserves praise for shutting so many opposing sides out.
The back five will again be key against Tottenham on Wednesday night, and will hope to provide the foundations for another victory. Swansea are the in form side of the two teams, with Spurs coming into this one without a win in any of their last five matches and having last week crashed out of the Europa League before suffering heartache at Wembley, could be there for the taking. A confident Swansea side could well take advantage.
*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.
