‘I Just Fancy’ – Birmingham Favoured Over Swansea By Ex-Championship Boss | OneFootball

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Former Championship manager Tony Pulis has predicted that Birmingham City will respond strongly against Swansea City after suffering three defeats on the trot.

Birmingham began their campaign well after achieving promotion from League One, earning a pair of wins and a draw in the Championship and progressed in the EFL Cup after seeing off Sheffield United.

Since the home victory against Oxford United, Blues have been knocked out of the EFL Cup by Port Vale and have been consigned to defeats on the road by Leicester City and Stoke City, respectively.

Pulis thought Birmingham played well against his old club Stoke and were unfortunate to come away from the game empty-handed.

The former Championship boss now fancies Birmingham to get a result over the Swans on Saturday, especially given that Blues will be playing in front of the home support.

Pulis said on The Managers (46:45): “I just fancy Birmingham.

“I think they have had a couple of sticky results away from home. They are back on home soil and with the crowd.

“I think they have sold all their season tickets.

“They are all sold out every weekend and I just see a very strong response [from Birmingham].

“I don’t think they played that badly at Stoke but got beat one nil.

“I just fancy them to get the result over Swansea on Saturday.”

With Birmingham manager Chris Davies tinkering with his squad, ex-EFL star Adrian Clarke believes he is yet to discover the perfect combination for his starting line-up.

But one area where Davies does not have to second-guess himself is midfield, with the pairing of Paik Seung-Ho and Tomoki Iwata hailed as the best in the league by Clarke himself.

Though the two teams are separated by four spots in the Championship table, the Swans have gained only a single point over the Blues.

The last time the two sides met, at the start of 2024, they played out a 2-2 draw; four of the last five meetings have ended as draws.