Vitor Matos | We need to bring heart and passion

Head coach Vitor Matos has urged Swansea City to round off a positive start to the Championship season with a strong performance against Lincoln City on Saturday afternoon (3pm).

The Swans head to Lincolnshire for their final fixture before the international break, with 14 points from their opening seven matches leaving them second in the Championship table heading into this weekend's round of games.

Six of those points have come away from home at Stoke City and Derby County, but they face an Imps side just three points behind them after a positive start to life in the Championship, with Lincoln back in the second tier for the first time in 65 years.

Last season's League One champions are yet to win at home in the Championship, but have proved stubborn opponents, keeping four clean sheets and suffering just two defeats from their opening seven games.

Matos is expecting another tough test but believes Swansea must be ready to adapt to what Lincoln have to offer.

“It's always about the next game,” he said. “Lincoln are a really good team in terms of their idea and how they want to approach games.

“They have a really clear way of playing and they make the game really competitive.

“They are quite a direct team with a really strong structure to catch a lot of second balls and use that straight away.

“We know what kind of game we're going to face. We know they are one of the best defences in the league.

“They are in a positive moment, so we expect a good game. It's a game that we also want to compete in and show that we want, in our way, to go everywhere and put in a proper performance.”

Matos knows Swansea will need to find different ways to win in the Championship, having already faced a variety of styles during their promising start.

And with Lincoln boasting one of the best defensive records in the division, the Swans will need to adapt to another different challenge.

“All games are different,” he added. “Lincoln are different in many ways, but we've also found that we've played against more vertical or more direct teams and teams playing with a back five.

“It's not the first one, but of course, different players, different personalities, all different dynamics.

“In this league, you have to find different ways to win, and that's something important. I said from the beginning that we need to be consistent in our way and be able to play against every type of opponent. That's what we're going to try.

“We know that we need to do a lot of things right to be able to have success there, while at the same time trying to impose ourselves.

“This is going to be a really hard game in a lot of ways. It's something that we've been working on and analysing to do our best.

“Lincoln have a really specific way of playing. They are really competitive in every situation. They are a team with physicality, proper heart and passion on the pitch, so we need to be ready to match that.”