Your Swansea City headlines on Monday, October 31.
Scotland camp details emerge
Swansea City will spend just shy of a week in Scotland during the World Cup break as they bid to be at full tilt for the clash with Norwich City on December 10.
Russell Martin's men will be out of action for a month following their game at Huddersfield Town on November 12 owing to the tournament in Qatar, and it has emerged that the Swans will face Hearts and Rangers before they return to Championship action in December.
READ MORE: What's happened to Joel Piroe during enforced lay-off as Swansea City star apologises to team-mates
Swansea will spend six days at Oriam, Scotland’s National Performance Centre in Edinburgh and will face the two Scottish Premiership sides in behind-closed-doors matches. And head coach Martin admits it was crucial that his side played before their return to action against his former club Norwich given the length of the World Cup break.
"It came about because we needed games during that period," Martin told WalesOnline. "We can't not have any games going into Norwich.
"They'll [players] have a bit of time off and then we'll get back together here for a week. That'll be a conditioning week. We'll focus more on the physical side more than anything else. Then we need a couple of weeks on the training pitch and working on things before we go into the next block of games.
"Within that, we needed some games. We don't want to play another Championship team because it's counter productive, playing against someone you're going to play against, why would you give them a chance to play against you and work out some stuff?
"Premier League teams don't go back until two-and-a-half weeks after us so none of them want games until the week after when we're playing our first league game.
"So the only other option was to try and go abroad or we can use the contacts we've got up the road, me personally and Andy Goldie can sort out some games that way, so we have, and we're really pleased with the quality of games we've got.
"Hearts are great, they're playing us before they go away and then Rangers are coming back and playing us, so it'll be two really good tests for us. We'll get everyone some minutes.
"It's going to be freezing, we can't afford warm weather training! It'll really serve a purpose and get everyone together again."
'Dangerous duo' need to fire
Michael Obafemi admits Joel Piroe played a key role in his improvement with Swansea in the second-half of the 2021/22 campaign.
Obafemi scored just once in his first 14 appearances for the Swans after joining from Southampton last summer, although he excelled from February onwards, netting 11 times in his final 19 outings for the club last season.
With more than a third of the current campaign gone, the duo have just seven goals between them, although Russell Martin's men continue to occupy a play-off spot in the Championship, such has been the contribution of the squad as a whole.
And Obafemi confessed that both he and Piroe need to hit the goal trail once again to help fire the Swans to a top-six finish this season.
"He's been amazing. He helped me settle down as well," Obafemi said of his team-mate. "He's away from his family and he's always got his arm around me. He's older than me, just a bit! But he's been amazing.
"He's a fantastic player as we've all seen and we're just looking forward to the rest of the season.
"Me and Joel are a dangerous duo. When we're both on the pitch and we're both on it, you can see we just want to score goals.
"Thirty-six last year was pretty good, but I feel like this year we should be aiming for more. If we want to get into the play-offs or get promotion, that's what we need to do, score goals."
Martin contract talks at early stage
Russell Martin admits talks between his coaching staff's representatives and Swansea City over an extended contract are only at an early stage.
The head coach signed a three-year deal when he joined the Swans from MK Dons in the summer of 2021, although, such has been the improvement of the team over his 15-month tenure to date, he has been linked with numerous jobs elsewhere.
Martin has been touted with roles at former club Norwich City, Watford, West Brom and Brighton in recent months having taken the Swans from the Championship's bottom three to the top six of late. However, the head coach admitted he remains comfortable with his situation at the club, regardless of whether or not his contract is renewed.
"I don't think it's very close," he said on a possible new deal. "There's been early discussions between our representatives and Julian Winter. I don't concern myself with that too much. It's up to them to discuss it.
"Everyone knows how we feel about being here, everyone knows we're absolutely loving the job and loving the people we're working with. That's all that matters to us.
"If it gets to a point where both people are really happy and they can bring it to us then that'll be amazing. If it doesn't, we have a good length of time on our contracts, so we're quite comfortable with that.
"If the club decided they wanted us to stay for a period of time and they wanted to really commit to that, then we'd be absolutely delighted."
Ntcham hoping for last pre-World Cup push
Olivier Ntcham is confident that Swansea can continue to rack up points before the World Cup break having gone three games unbeaten since losing at Burnley.
The Swans have claimed seven points from the last nine on offer and once again came from behind to earn something for their efforts at Bristol City courtesy of Ntcham's fourth goal of the campaign.
“With the goal it seems to be happening a lot at the moment, and I am happy to score and happy to help the team," he told the club website.
“Of course it is good to be scoring goals, but I don’t care about the numbers so much, for me it is more important to help the team to do well.
“I want us to go on from here and try and win these next two or three games. Confidence is high at the moment and over the last five or six games we have played really well, apart from at Burnley.
“We showed the spirit of the team and we are looking forward to the next game.”
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