Match Highlights

WATCH HIGHLIGHTS

SWANSEA CITY 3 COVENTRY CITY 1

MICHAEL OBAFEMI STOLE THE SHOW AS SWANSEA CITY MADE IT THREE HOME WINS IN A ROW WITH VICTORY OVER COVENTRY AT THE SWANSEA. COM STADIUM.

TEAM LINEUPS

Swans: Andy Fisher; Ben Cabango, Kyle Naughton, Ryan Manning; Flynn Downes, Matt Grimes (captain), Korey Smith (Jay Fulton 81), Cyrus Christie; Joel Piroe, Jamie Paterson (Olivier Ntcham 64); Michael Obafemi (Joel Latibeaudiere 73).

Subs not used: Ben Hamer, Kyle Joseph, Finley Burns, Cameron Congreve.

Coventry City: Simon Moore, Jake Clarke-Salter, Michael Rose, Kyle McFadzean (captain), Jamie Allen, Ben Sheaf, Viktor Gyokeres (Martyn Waghorn 63’), Ian Maatsen, Todd Kane, Jake Bidwell (Matty Godden 63’), Gustavo Hamer.

Subs not used: Ben Wilson, Jodi Jones, Josh Reid, Fabio Tavares, Ryan Howley.

Referee: Geoff Eltringham

Attendance: 18,405

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SWANSEA CITY LAUNCH GRASSROOTS TICKETING OFFER

Swansea City are delighted to announce a brand new ticketing initiative, designed to offer discount rates to local grassroots teams and ensuring the next generation of the Jack Army are welcomed to the club.

In conjunction with Swansea City Academy and the Swansea City AFC Foundation, the club are offering local youth teams the opportunity to apply for discounted rate tickets for the team and accompanying parents watch their first games at the Swansea.com Stadium and cheer on the Swans. The initiative has also been warmly welcomed by the Swansea City Supporters’ Trust.

The tickets, situated in the South West and South East corners of the Swansea.com Stadium are priced at £1 for kids and £10 for accompanying adults, with this offer being valid for any home fixture remaining in the 2021-22 season.

Grassroots teams interested in this offer are advised to collate the names, email addresses, date of births and addresses for all supporters in their party and have one lead purchaser contact the ticket office on 01792 616400 with the information, in order to make the booking.

There will be a £2.50 booking fee per grassroots team and the tickets will then be made available for collection on matchday from the matchday ticket booth. Please note there is a limit of 350 tickets per game available, so supporters are advised to act fast to secure their group booking. Each grassroots team are limited to one booking this season so the club can ensure we welcome as many new supporters as possible.

“The club has done a lot of work with regards to trying to bring down the average age of our supporter base, and this offer is another initiative that we hope is successful,” said Swansea City chief executive Julian Winter.

“Our work within the community is massively important, particularly at grassroots level with local clubs and I encourage as many youth teams as possible to get in touch with the club and bring your players along to the Swansea.com Stadium.”

Please visit swanseacity.com or email ticketing@swanseacity. com for more information.

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CONFIDENCE THE KEY TO COVENTRY WIN SAYS PATO

Jamie Paterson claimed that Swansea City’s win against West Brom gave them the confidence to follow it up with another victory at home to Coventry.

Russell Martin’s men made it backto-back league wins and three home successes on the bounce with victory over the Sky Blues.

Paterson opened the scoring in the 12th minute, finishing superbly with a fine left-foot shot after wonderful build-up play.

The home side doubled their lead in the first half as Michael Obafemi grabbed his first of the afternoon, before the former Southampton man grabbed his second with another cool finish just after the interval. Coventry pulled one back in the closing stages, however the Swans’ work earlier on in the game was enough to secure a third home victory on the bounce.

And Paterson believed the win over West Brom was the catalyst for a second successive win.

“You could see that (the win over West Brom gave the team confidence),” he said. “We started with a lot of confidence and this league is about trying to put a run together, then you never know where it can take you.

“It is just about results, winning games, and the performances.

“We scored three goals today, and it is a good sign that the strikers are confident. It was comfortable in the end, we probably wanted to play better in the second half.

“We went 3-0 up early in the game but we were a bit disappointed with the second half, we played well in the first half so we just want to maintain that now.

“If you want to be successful your home form must be tip top. With the fans getting behind us, it makes a big difference. We need to make home a fortress and the last three here we have played really well so we need to carry that on.”

STILETTOS AND STUDS BY JULIE KISSICK

Today is International Women’s Day – and what better day to pay tribute to some of the women who have played key roles in football over the decades, particularly here at Swansea City.

We’ll be featuring some of them on our website over the next few days, from club secretary to the wives of players and probably the most famous ‘tea lady’ Swansea will ever know.

In a recent survey for the English Football League ahead of IWD, 91% of female fans said nothing could beat the live football matchday experience and 61% of them said football was about more than just winning, it was about feeling a sense of belonging to their town/city’s football club.

We have a successful women’s team which formed in 2002 and it has spent the last two decades making a positive impact in terms of league and cup success, as well as providing players for the national side.

Swansea City Ladies' first signing, Gorseinon-born Natalie Ashford, went on to become a Welsh international and represented her club side in the Champions League twice, once in Slovenia and then in Cyprus.

“It was a great club to play for because there was a good set up in terms of the social side of things,” she said.

“Ian Owen was the manager for much of my time and we trained more and harder than most of the clubs in our league and we reaped the benefits of that because of things like the Champions League.”

Last year, UEFA launched a public awareness campaign to highlight women making gamechanging contributions to the development of football. It was keen to highlight the ‘outstanding work of some of the extraordinary women in football’ – both on and off the pitch.

You may be forgiven for thinking that the rise in popularity of women playing football has been a recent phenomenon, but that is not the case. Women started playing football in Wales as far back as the time of the First World War.

After the men went to war, thousands of women entered the workforce, many in munitions factories making artillery shells and those factories produced women’s football teams and their games drew crowds in their tens of thousands.

The teams played charitable matches to raise funds for local hospitals and for war memorials and one of the most successful teams in Wales at that time came from Swansea.

It was formed by women workers from the National Shell Factory (formerly Baldwins) in Landore, Swansea and the side was unbeaten champions between 1917 and 1919 and won three silver cups for their efforts.

The game has grown since then, despite women being banned from playing football between 1921 and 1971 - five decades when football was deemed ‘quite unsuitable for females’, according to the Football Association.

But it isn’t just on the pitch that women play a significant role in football. Wives, mothers, sisters, partners and women doing the jobs they do in football clubs from chief executives to physios to caterers all have an impact.

Today we celebrate all of them.

WELSH COLUMN BY OWAIN LLYR, BBC CYMRU

Dw i am sibrwd hyn yn isel, ond tybed a fyse buddugoliaeth yn erbyn Fulham heno yn gallu sbarduno Abertawe i fynd ar rediad fyse’n rhoi cyfle iddyn nhw gyrraedd y gemau'r ail-gyfle ar ddiwedd y tymor?

Fel ag y mae pethau ar y funud mae’r Elyrch 11 pwynt o’r chwe safle uchaf, ond maen nhw wedi chwarae un gêm yn llai na Middlesbrough sy’n chweched. Felly mi fyse buddugoliaeth heno yn cau’r bwlch yna i wyth pwynt. Yn amlwg mae Fulham am fod yn dipyn o her gan mai tîm Marco Silva sydd ar frig y tabl, ond mae’n bwysig cofio bod Abertawe wedi ennill dwy gêm yn olynol.

Mi oedd ‘na dipyn o bwysau ar ysgwyddau Joel Piroe yn ystod rhan gyntaf y tymor i sgorio’r goliau i Abertawe, ond yn ystod yr wythnosau dwetha’ ‘da ni wedi gweld Michael Obafemi yn ysgafnhau’r baich ar Piroe. Mi oedd y disgwyliadau’n uchel ar ôl iddo ymuno o Southampton dros yr haf, ond am sawl rheswm mi gymerodd hi amser iddo setlo yn Ne Cymru. Ond mwyaf sydyn mae o wedi sgorio pedair gôl yn ei saith gêm ddwetha’, ac mae Abertawe yn edrych yn dîm llawer mwy bygythiol pan mae Piroe ac Obafemi yn chwarae’n y llinell flaen.

Yn sgîl y problemau gyda Jamie Paterson yn gynharach yn y tymor, mae hi’n braf ei weld nôl ar ei orau unwaith eto. Mi gymerodd o ei gôl yn erbyn Coventry ddydd Sadwrn yn wych, ac mi oedd o yng nghanol popeth da wnaeth y tîm. Mae Paterson, Obafemi a Piroe yn chwaraewyr sy’n mynd i achosi problemau di-ri i unrhyw amddiffyn yn y Bencampwriaeth, ac mae hynny’n argoeli’n dda ar gyfer y tymor nesaf.

Yn anffodus tydi Cyrus Christie ddim ar gael i chwarae heno gan ei fod ar fenthyg o Fulham, ac mi fydd o’n golled fawr. Mae o wedi bod yn un o chwaraewyr mwyaf cyson yr Elyrch ers ymuno â’r clwb nôl ym mis Ionawr, ac mae o’n barod wedi cyfrannu efo dwy gôl. Dydi hi ddim yn syndod o gwbl clywed Russell Martin yn dweud bod y clwb yn gobeithio ei arwyddo’n barhaol ar ddiwedd y tymor. Ond am y tro, mi fydd yn rhaid i’r rheolwr ddod o hyd i ffordd o ymdopi hebddo heno.