Swansea City

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Swansea City head coach Vitor Matos praised the "massive impact" of his substitutes following the 1-0 win over fellow Championship strugglers Portsmouth.

Tuesday's victory gave the Swans back-to-back wins for the first time since April and, more importantly, opened up a six-point gap between themselves and the bottom three.

Matos used his bench to excellent effect in the second half, as Zeidane Inoussa and Malick Yalcouye combined for their fellow substitute Liam Cullen to score the decisive goal with a sweet first-time left-footed strike.

"I think how we are starting to create this togetherness and this understanding that everyone will have a role and has a role on the team, I think that's massive for the future," said Matos.

"The impact of the bench was massive. We will need that for the future, 100%, especially for the upcoming games as well. And yeah, really happy for everyone, really happy for what we did as well."

Having lost his first two games as Swansea boss, former Liverpool assistant coach Matos now has two wins from the opening four matches of his tenure.

Both victories have come with clean sheets – following Saturday's 2-0 triumph over Oxford United – and Matos believes that defensive solidity is more important than the fact his side have won successive games for the first time this season.

"I think more than that is this one, the clean sheet, that we kept another clean sheet, especially at home," the Portuguese said.

"This kind of mentality, that understanding that we start building the things from the defensive way, I think that was massive.

"Of course, winning helps, but we know that we need to keep doing steps. We know that we need to keep improving and that there's a lot of things to come still."

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Swansea welcome Portsmouth for a crunch clash at the foot of the Championship table on Tuesday (19:45 GMT).

The Swans climbed to 20th courtesy of Saturday's 2-0 win over fellow-strugglers Oxford United, which ended a run of five straight defeats.

They lie three points ahead of third-bottom Pompey, whose game at Charlton was abandoned after a medical emergency in the crowd at The Valley early in the first half.

Pompey go into this game having lost three of their past four games, both overall and on the road.

• Swansea are winless in their past 13 league games against Portsmouth (D8 L5) since a 4-0 home win in December 1960.

• Nine of Portsmouth's 14 away league games against Swansea have been draws (W2 L3), with their victories coming across their last three visits (2-1 in December 1983, 2-1 in November 2010).

• Swansea have lost seven of their past 10 midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) Championship games (W2 D1), including four of their five at home in this run (W1).

• Portsmouth have lost eight of their past nine midweek (Tues, Weds, Thurs) away league games (D1), including each of the last seven in a row.

• Josh Murphy both scored and assisted a goal in both of Portsmouth's Championship meetings with Swansea last season (2 goals, 2 assists).

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Vitor Matos has quickly switched attention towards taking the "next steps" after claiming his first Swansea City victory this weekend.

Marko Stamenic's first goal for the club and a glorious volley from Josh Tymon saw Swansea claim a 2-0 win over Oxford United.

The Swans' first victory in seven league games lifted them to 20th in the table, three point clear of the relegation places.

They face another potentially pivotal home fixture against Portsmouth on Tuesday, with Matos hoping the Oxford triumph will give his team greater belief going into that game.

"I think it helps," Swansea's head coach said.

"When you build new ideas with wins, it's 10 times easier because it gives the feeling that you are improving, but it's just one step.

"We need to improve in a lot of areas on the game. We need to find the consistency, especially when we are in the second half, the ways that we need to control the game better.

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"It was an important win – in this league you need points that's the truth - but we need to do the next steps."

Portsmouth, who are 22nd in the Championship, saw their fixture at Charlton on Saturday abandoned.

The game was suspended after only 12 minutes due to a medical emergency in the stands at The Valley before being called off, with Charlton confirming a home supporter had died.

"First my words to the family - I think that's important to say," Matos said.

"That is something we cannot change. What we can change, or what we need to do, is to recover well and do everything we can [to prepare for Portsmouth].

"The departments and the club help the players to recover, [we] find the best XI possible and compete again."

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New boss Vitor Matos hailed Josh Tymon's "brilliant" goal after Swansea City finally enjoyed set-piece success in their much-needed win over Oxford United.

Swansea were the only Championship team not to have scored a set-piece goal in the league this season before the U's came to Wales on Saturday.

But Swansea wiped out the unwanted record when Marko Stamenic headed them in front from Tymon's free-kick late in the first half.

They swiftly scored a memorable second goal when Eom Jisung's free-kick was only cleared as far as Tymon, who volleyed spectacularly into the top corner from 20 yards.

"It was brilliant - I just hope he can do it again!" said a smiling Matos.

"But yeah, brilliant goal. I think the goal is massive, but his performance was as well. He defended really good, stopped crosses, which is something massive especially in the Championship.

"He balanced the team, he supported the attack, he found ways to go to the last third as well, so I think that Tymo did a really good game and I'm really pleased.

"The goal was a really good goal, but it was the pinnacle of the performance, if you want to say."

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Swansea held on with relative comfort in the second half to claim a 2-0 victory which halted their five-game losing streak and gave Matos his first points as head coach in his third game in charge.

Matos was aware of Swansea's miserable set-piece record, adding: "That was something that we've analysed before.

"We knew that we needed to improve set-pieces offensively. Scoring one and then one from second phase was quite important."

Swansea climbed a place to 20th thanks to their first victory in seven league games, though they are just three points clear of the relegation places as they prepare to face 22nd-placed Portsmouth on Tuesday.

Matos says he is unsure whether Josh Key will be available to face Pompey after the right-back missed out against Oxford due to illness.

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Vitor Matos says he hopes Malick Yalcouye will have a part to play in his Swansea City side despite leaving the midfielder out of his squad in his first two games in charge.

Yalcouye has not featured for Swansea since being sent off for violent conduct in the home defeat to Queens Park Rangers in October.

Former boss Alan Sheehan felt the Swans had pulled off a major coup by landing Yalcouye on a season-long loan from Brighton in the summer.

But the 20-year-old has made only 11 appearances – including five league starts – since joining the struggling Championship club.

When asked about Yalcouye, new head coach Matos said: "I see one player of the squad that like all in this moment, all of them, they need to make a statement in terms of availability and that's how it is.

"I arrived one week ago, [I am] starting to know them, starting to see. I need to make decisions and that's the decision so far.

"So I like him, he has a lot of qualities, a lot of potential, but in the end we need to make a decision and that's how it is."

Matos says that though Yalcouye speaks only limited English, he has been able to communicate with the Ivory Coast Under-23 international as he speaks some French.

"We like Malick. Malick has really good potential," Matos added.

"Sometimes it's about timing, it's about the number of players available in that position, it's about what you need for the next game, it's about the performance of the last game. There's a lot of considerations you need to have.

"But we also have different players that at the moment and especially for the last two games, I decided that they were more, let's say, the need we wanted on the team."

Yalcouye will hope to feature for the first time in nine Swansea games when Matos' side host Oxford United on Saturday.

Swansea are currently bottom of the Championship's form guide having taken only one point from their past six games as they look to end a five-match losing run.

Oxford's win over Ipswich last Friday ended a five-game sequence without a victory and keeps them one point outside the relegation zone leading into this game (15:00 GMT).

• Swansea have alternated between a draw (3) and a win (2) in their past five home league games against Oxford, drawing this exact fixture 3-3 last season.

• Oxford are winless in their past five league games against Swansea (D2 L3), coming from behind to equalise three times in a 3-3 draw in their last meeting in May.

• Swansea City have lost each of their past five league games, last losing more consecutively between March and April 2004 (6).

• Following a 2-1 win against Ipswich last time out, Oxford are looking to win consecutive league matches for the first time since January.

• Only West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United (6 each) have lost more away games in the Championship this season than Oxford United (5).

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Vitor Matos says it is possible that on-loan winger Manuel Benson could return to parent club Burnley in the January transfer window.

Benson has made little impact since joining Swansea on loan for the remainder of 2025-26 on 1 September.

The Swans will definitely be without Benson for a spell following their trip to Stoke City on Saturday, 13 December after he was named in the Angola squad for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon).

When asked whether Benson's loan could be cut short following that tournament, Swansea head coach Matos said: "[That is] not yet decided.

"All the loan players are always a possibility in the transfer window, that's the truth.

"Some depends on the club, some depends on the players, some depends on the mother club, so it's a situation that we are still to see."

Benson was not even on the bench as Swansea were beaten at West Bromwich Albion, though he did feature as a substitute in the defeat to Derby nine days ago, Matos' first game as the club's head coach.

In all, former Royal Antwerp player Benson has made eight Swansea appearances, including only one league start.

On-loan Brighton midfielder Malick Yalcouye has also been absent from Swansea's bench in recent weeks, the 20-year-old having not played a minute since his red card against Queens Park Rangers in October.

West Ham centre-back Kaelan Casey has made 10 Swansea appearances so far in his loan stint in Wales, while Chelsea left-back Ishe Samuels-Smith – the Welsh club's other loan signing – has played five times.

Benson is certain to miss at least three Swansea games over Christmas due to Afcon, but could be absent until late January depending on how far Angola progress in the tournament.

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Former Wales striker Iwan Roberts says Swansea City's summer signings have it all to prove with the club in "massive trouble" at the wrong end of the Championship.

Swansea are only outside the bottom three on goal difference having slumped to a fifth successive league defeat at West Bromwich Albion last weekend.

There was a wave of optimism at Swansea after a summer transfer window which was widely regarded as the club's most successful in years.

But Roberts believes Swansea may have brought in too many players with no experience of the English second tier.

"At the start of the season, the majority of Swansea were fans were delighted with the window and the signings they brought in," Roberts told this week's Feast of Football podcast.

"I wasn't sure. I look at the business Wrexham did, bringing lads in who have had success in the Championship, and I think they had a far more successful window.

"There are a lot of unknowns in the Swansea squad - I think the jury is still out with a lot of the players Swansea signed in the summer.

"They better be ready for a fight, for a scrap, because they are right in it."

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Roberts was working as a pundit at The Hawthorns as Swansea went 2-0 up against the out-of-form Baggies only to lose 3-2 after a second-half collapse.

He felt Swansea were "very, very good in the first half", when new head coach Vitor Matos' determination to play with "intensity and high up the pitch" was in evidence.

But he added: "At half-time, as a Swansea player I'd have thought 'Ryan Mason's going to absolutely slaughter them in there, so we'd better be ready for the first 10 minutes of the second half'. And they weren't.

"As soon as the first goal went in, I was looking at that Swansea team and thinking they have gone.

"I think they are in massive trouble if you look at the games they have got coming up. It's a massive month for the Swans."

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It took Zan Vipotnik just under 12 seconds to put Swansea City ahead against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.

The striker lobbed Baggies goalkeeper Josh Griffiths after a through ball from Goncalo Franco.

Vipotnik has impressed this season and his strike on the weekend made it seven Championship goals from 16 games.

But while the Slovenian's goal will be one of the quickest scored this season, it is not the fastest Swansea have ever scored.

That record has been held by Leonard Thompson for almost a century, after his strike against Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1926.

Thompson spent five years with the Swans from 1922 to 1927, scoring 89 goals in 188 appearances.

His Wolves goal came after just 10 seconds and remains the quickest scored in Swansea's history - just.

Image source, BBC Sport

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Swansea City are in a perilous position in the Championship after five straight league defeats.

The Swans are outside the division's relegation places on goal difference alone, and face crucial fixtures against Oxford United and Portsmouth over the next eight days.

We asked you, Swansea's fans, how concerned you were with the position Vitor Matos' team find themselves in.

Here is a selection of your responses.

Mark: Very worrying times, we seem to be going backwards each season and even with a 'successful' transfer window we are once again all at sea. Players fade after 30 minutes in every game and clearly do not have passion and heart for the club, each other, the manager or the fans.

Paul: It's not a good changing room at the moment, to be 2-0 up thinking we've won the game at West Brom is a massive mistake, there needs to be a bit more confidence in the squad.

Iwan: I'm not worried yet as the standard of players are better than the competition around the bottom of the league, although I might answer differently in two weeks.

Will: It strangely resembles when we got a relegated from the Premier League - years of slow decline, reckless summer spending and sacking managers right, left and centre. Are there going to be three teams worse than us? A tough question to answer right now. Yes, I am worried about Swansea!

Mike: Two absolute must-win games at home. Win and the outlook is a lot less bleak. Lose or draw and we really are looking in trouble. Matos is new to management and that was a huge gamble to appoint him. I hope the boys upstairs did their due diligence. Personally would have liked a more experienced manager but will support and back the club regardless.

Aaron: As a Swansea fan for the last 20 years or so, I'm the most concerned I've been for a while. So much faith was put into Alan Sheehan that he got the long-term gig and a lot of new promising young lads turned up. Yet almost everything has gone wrong.

Image source, BBC Sport

Swansea City are outside the Championship's relegation places on goal difference after suffering five straight league defeats.

New head coach Vitor Matos has had a difficult start to life in south Wales, with the Swans squandering a 2-0 lead at West Bromwich Albion on Saturday to lose 3-2.

The Swans' next two games are against the sides directly above and below them, as they welcome Oxford United and Portsmouth to the Swansea.com Stadium in the space of three days.

More defeats could leave the club in a perilous position going into the festive period of games, while two wins could see the Swans rise as high as 17th.

So how worried are you, Swansea fans?

Have your say here!

Gareth Vincent
BBC Sport Wales

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Vitor Matos suggested after Swansea City's defeat at West Bromwich Albion that he had seen "glimpses of what we can build from".

He may have a point, but his new team are not in a position where they can patiently wait for progress.

Swansea's alarming collapse in form means they need rapid results.

In fact, their next two fixtures, at home to Oxford United and Portsmouth, look about as significant as they can be given that they will be played in early December.

Swansea have slipped to 21st in the Championship after suffering a fifth successive league defeat this weekend.

They are only above Portsmouth, in 22nd, courtesy of a slight advantage in the goal difference column.

Oxford, meanwhile, are a place and a point above Swansea after they toppled Ipswich Town on Friday night.

Swansea must hope that at some stage this season, they can emulate Oxford by getting the better of some of the clubs who are in the top echelons of the division.

Their four wins so far, after all, have come against four of the sides who are currently in the second tier's bottom seven.

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They play the two they have not yet faced in their next two matches.

With 28 league fixtures still to play in 2025-26, it is surely too early to talk about must-win games.

But it is fair to suggest that Swansea are in desperate need of a couple of results to restore some of the belief and confidence which has ebbed away in the last three months.

The manner of Swansea's capitulation at The Hawthorns, after two fine goals in the first 12 minutes had put them in a commanding position, was worrying if not that surprising.

From the moment Aune Heggebo made it 2-1 two minutes into the second half, a West Brom victory looked close to inevitable, so it was no shock when Jayson Molumby scored the home side's winner five minutes from time.

There were few excuses for Swansea, either.

Matos had a full squad available, and the Swans were taking on an Albion team in poor form who were woeful before half-time.

To end up with nothing in such circumstances is particularly concerning for a Swansea side who expected much better this season.

With daunting away games at Stoke City and Coventry City around the corner – either side of a home encounter with in-form Wrexham – Matos' team could really do with positive results when they host Oxford next Saturday and Pompey three days later.

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Vitor Matos has told his players that only those showing "hunger and desire" will feature in his Swansea City side.

Head coach Matos takes charge of struggling Swansea for the second time when they travel to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.

Having watched on from the stands as Swansea were well beaten at Bristol City last weekend, Matos made four changes to the starting side for Tuesday's home loss to Derby County.

As he considers whether to give more players an opportunity at The Hawthorns, the Portuguese says mentality will be the biggest factor in the selection process.

"It's quite clear that we need hunger and they need desire and that's the starting point for the players as well," Matos said who is keen to play with a counter-press.

"I said to the boys it's one of the tickets to the team. They need to have this inside of them and we start building.

"Of course we need to take care of the freshness of the squad, but everyone needs to know that the one with hunger will play and the one who is willing to put in 100% effort will play."

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Matos has had only limited time on the training pitch with his full squad since officially taking charge at the Swansea.com Stadium on Monday.

But having slipped to within two points of the Championship's bottom three in midweek, Matos' new team need to deliver soon in order to ease concerns that a relegation scrap could lie ahead this winter.

"We still are getting to know each other, we are still making steps," Matos added.

"It's always different when we have pre-season because you have more time to create relationships, to bond more, but it's been good.

"Everyone is putting a lot of effort to change the momentum and that's important."