Swans Can Glide By Kuban

When Swansea were stuffed 4-1 at home by Manchester United on the opening day of the season, many were wondering what sort of campaign they would be in for.

They shouldn’t have worried. Two months on and the Swans are finding their form and creeping up the table. Not only that, they have started like a house on fire in the Europa League, a competition they qualified for by winning the Capital One Cup at Wembley last May.

A fantastic 3-0 win at Valencia followed by a more workmanlike home victory against St Gallen leaves Michael Laudrup’s men on the verge of qualifying for the knock-out stages and few will be betting against them picking up another three points against Kuban Krasnodar at the Liberty Stadium tonight.

Indeed, Coral’s 4/9 a Swansea victory looks quite generous and if you don’t fancy betting odds-on, then 11/10 the home side being ahead at half time and full time could be tempting.

Swansea are really finding their stride now, doubtless buoyed by that amazing win in Spain. They gave as good as they got (apart from in front of goal) against a fine Southampton side in their last Premier League away fixture and then followed that up with a 4-0 thrashing of Sunderland last weekend, although in truth that’s not a result to write home about at the moment.

Michael Laudrup, like Andre Villas-Boas at Spurs and Owen Coyle at Wigan, are taking the Europa League very seriously (unlike some managers in recent years), feeling that this is actually a winnable competition for his squad, as well as providing invaluable experience.

He played both Michu and Wilfried Bony against St Gallen and if he goes with the same strikeforce, the Kuban defence could be in for a bit of a chasing. Coral make both forwards even money to score over the 90 minutes and 4/1 to net first or last.

Kuban are no great shakes. Promoted from the Russian First Division in 2010, they currently lie 11th of 16 in the Premier League with just three wins from their opening 13 games and are in a poor run of form.

Pointless after their first two fixtures, they do look the weakest side in Group A and are unlikely to cause the Swansea defence too many problems, despite the home side being without talented full back Ben Davies with an ankle injury.