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Nothing defines a manager in this neck of the woods quite like a South Wales derby.
This is a fixture that means everything to supporters. The be all and end all. The one that everyone across the region looks for first when the fixtures come out.
Few fixtures in British football carry the level of fire and passion of this game, and underestimating its significance seldom turns out well.
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Just ask Michael Duff or Steve Morison, both of whom were never quite forgiven for their attempts to downplay the magnitude of this game.
Winning this fixture can kickstart a season, and can perhaps cover up a multitude of other sins. Defeat, on the other hand, is often a terminal affliction for a manager.
When Erol Bulut took to the dugout at the Swansea.com Stadium, he was the first boss since Dave Jones to survive a derby-day defeat, which just goes to show how hard it is to come back from losing this game.
Bulut’s number two Omer Riza, who faced the press after that last game following the Turk’s red card for a touchline tussle with Kyle Naughton, now gets to experience the white-hot heat of this fixture first hand. How he handles it will likely set the tone for his reign, and indeed the rest of Cardiff’s largely miserable excuse of a season.
Cardiff have admittedly shown some real signs of improvement under the current boss in recent weeks, following up an impressive win at play-off-chasing Watford with creditable draws with Coventry City and Middlesbrough.
FA Cup victory at Sheffield United has sparked further optimism heading into this fixture. However, a winless run of nine games towards the end of the calendar year means the table still makes for pretty grim reading for Cardiff fans.
The Bluebirds need points more than anything else right now, and it doesn’t really matter where those points come from, whether it be from the Swans on Saturday, or Watford on Tuesday night.
Nevertheless, winning this game would be one hell of a platform on which to build a road to safety. Defeat, in contrast, would further emphasise their perilous position in the relegation zone, and further compound concerns that have been bubbling away in the capital over the last few weeks. Indeed, some still feel this squad is lacking the necessary mentality to get themselves out of the bottom three.
Mentality is something Luke Williams has been talking about quite a lot recently.
The difference, of course, is that he’s still hoping of masterminding a charge for the play-offs, rather than a successful survival bid.
Williams, publicly at least, has insisted this squad has enough quality to mount a top-six challenge. At the moment, there’s not a lot of evidence to support that assessment, although they have certainly been competitive in most of their games with the sides above them this season.
However, the Swans are yet to beat any of the teams currently occupying the top six places. It’s a record Williams has put down to mentality rather than quality, but his comments have perhaps made life harder for him.
There’s nothing wrong with talking your team up, of course. Nor is it fair to take issue with a manager seemingly looking to raise standards and expectations.
But in doing so, Williams has perhaps invited pressure that might not have otherwise have been there. The more he talked up this squad’s abilities, the more people have started to question if he’s really getting the best out of them when they don’t perform.
However, it’s the West Bromwich Albion saga that has perhaps put the biggest dent into his goodwill with the fanbase.
Williams never received any sort of approach from West Brom over their vacant manager’s role. Nor did he ever indicate he wanted the job.
But his previous refusal to rule out a move to The Hawthorns didn’t go down well with a number of supporters. Chairman Andy Coleman was also understood to be unimpressed, and a run of two wins from seven games in all competitions has put Williams on the back foot heading into this latest derby clash.
The Swans boss has a big advantage over his opposite number in that he knows how to win this fixture, but the flip side of that point is that there is perhaps a little more expectation on him to deliver.
Williams is perhaps in his first real tight spot as Swans boss, as evidenced by the reaction to the meek FA Cup exit at the hands of Southampton on Sunday, and indeed the subdued atmosphere at home to West Brom.
Defeat will see the ongoing rumblings of discontent from his critics get louder. Should he complete a third double over Cardiff, on their own patch, however, it will go a long way to restoring some faith, and perhaps heal some of the wounds of the last couple of weeks.