Swansea in serious need of points against in-form Spurs

On form Swansea v Tottenham looks a bit of a no-contest. While the Swans are without a win in their last seven Premiership games, Spurs have won six out of their last eight, including their last three.

Coral go 6/4 Spurs (2/1 Swansea, 9/4 the draw), which on the face of it seems like a big price the visitors, but the South Wales outfit are a better team than their current League position implies and have actually been showing signs of a revival this month.

Just three points above the relegation zone, Michael Laudrup will be under no illusions about the task facing his squad for the remainder of the season, but Swansea’s fortunes will surely improve when the manager gets some of his injured players back.

Their poor League run was pleasantly interrupted by a fine 2-1 win at Manchester United in the FA Cup 3rd Round and although they weren’t able to repeat the trick on a return visit to the north west the following week for a Premier League fixture, they still showed enough to suggest that they will soon be turning the corner.

Not many teams can boast 61% possession at Old Trafford and Swansea did appear to have matters under control until United stepped it up in the second half.

The trouble with Swansea at the moment is that, despite knocking the ball around at will in midfield, they don’t have enough of a cutting edge up front.

Wilfried Bony looks a very good player at times, but the one man Laudrup will be desperate to get back is Michu – the club’s leading scorer last season with 18 Premier League goals – and it looks as though an ankle injury will keep the extremely talented striker out for another few weeks yet.

Spurs are thriving under Tim Sherwood and they do to appear to have enough quality players in their squad to maintain a top four challenge (7/2 with Coral), even if a few of their expensive summer purchases do leave before the end of the January transfer window, as has been rumoured.

Sherwood likes to play on the front foot and we should again see two strikers in tandem at the Liberty Stadium, including the born-again Emmanuel Adebayor (5/4 to be on the scoresheet again, 5/1 first or last).