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Premier League preview No16: Swansea City

This article is more than 12 years old
Brendan Rodgers' attractive side have the spirit and skill to stay up, though the new season will be a world away from their wonder years under John Toshack
Paul Doyle and Amy Lawrence assess Swansea's chances guardian.co.uk

Guardian writers' prediction 20th (This is not Scott Murray's prediction, but the average of our writers' tips)

Last season's position 3rd in the Championship

Odds against winning the title 5,000-1

Thirty years ago, give or take a couple of weeks, Swansea City embarked on their first-ever season in the top flight of English football. Their 1981-82 campaign still stands as one of the greatest in the history of the game. Having completed a four-year rise from the league basement, John Toshack's unfancied side won 5-1 on the opening day of the season – against Leeds United, who had contested the European Cup final only six years previously, at a point when Swansea had finished 90th of 92 league places – and would be top of the then First Division by October.

Over the course of that campaign, Swansea would beat Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, as well as the reigning European champions and English champions-elect Liverpool. Injuries eventually took their toll on Toshack's small squad, and the Swans ended the campaign in sixth place, despite having still been bothering the top in March, but it was an epic achievement nonetheless.

Swansea's decline would be as quick as their ascent – within four seasons they were back in the Fourth, Toshack having been sacked and the club having at one point been wound up in the courts – but then that's not really the point. When the Swans run out at Manchester City later this week to once again pull up a chair at the top table, reminiscence will be the order of the day.

The Toshack years are worth a nostalgic wallow anyway, but there is a parallel with today. Swansea's promotion to the top tier this time round may not have been quite as dramatic as their predecessors', but it's not far off. It's easy to forget that in 2002, a mere nine years ago, City needed to win on the last day of the season against Hull City to keep their place in the Football League. A 4-2 win ensured Exeter City went through the trap door instead. Swansea set about wheeching back up the League, albeit at a pace veteran fans will consider sedate, at least when compared to what's gone before.

Promotions have been won in steady three-year intervals, first in 2005, then in 2008, and finally this year. Swansea, under Paulo Sousa, were pipped by Blackpool for the Championship play-offs in 2009-10, though fans didn't mind too much once the initial deep burn of disappointment subsided; there was a general sense that the team, and the club, weren't quite ready. But last season, with Brendan Rodgers, an alumnus of the Chelsea Academy of José Mourinho, at the helm, Swansea knew they were ready for the final push.

Rodgers is, unsurprisingly, well regarded round Swansea way after his successful first season. "He's incredibly popular," says Huw Richards, the author of The Swansea City Alphabet (as well as a delightful account of following the club's 1978-79 Third Division promotion campaign while railcarding around Europe in the must-read anthology My Favourite Year). "He's a decent, civilised human being. He was very generous about his former club Reading, after we beat them in the Championship play-off. And he's a passing man. The quality of our football is important. We're a budget Barcelona."

And if that's not praise enough, maybe the New Blackpool too? There are parallels with last season's Official Premier League Breath Of Fresh Air™: Swansea are everyone's favourites for relegation, but at least they try to play an aesthetically pleasing game. And there's a sense that, if they hold their nerve, stay positive and go for it, their purist instincts may just be enough to keep them out of trouble. It's a tactic that served Blackpool well, after all, even if they did fall just short.

Swansea have attacking options. Erstwhile Chelsea and Plymouth Argyle menace Scott Sinclair scored 23 times last season, most memorably notching a hat-trick at Wembley in the play-off final, and was a constant threat down either flank. He regularly switched places with Nathan Dyer, equally dangerous on his day, and the fans' player of the season last time round. Wayne Routledge, a Championship promotion specialist, has been added to the mix; at 26, he'll be looking finally to fulfil his promise in the top division.

Light on free-scoring out-and-out strikers, Rodgers has addressed the situation with the signing of Middlesbrough's Leroy Lita, and Danny Graham, the latter joining in a £3.5m deal from the manager's former club Watford. Graham's signing is something of a coup; he'd also been a target for the Championship winners Queens Park Rangers, who he had inadvertently impressed by tearing them to pieces at Loftus Road last year.

Rodgers will mix it up: he can also call on Luke Moore and Craig Beattie, formerly of Aston Villa and Celtic respectively, as well as the impressive Stephen Dobbie, who scored Swansea's other goal at Wembley while patrolling Hidegkuti Country.

At the back, Swansea have a reputation to uphold: a solid unit, they conceded only 42 goals last season, a record bettered in the Championship only by QPR. Much will depend on the reaction of their outstanding central defender Ashley Williams, taking his first taste of top-flight football. In terms of shoring things up, it's also to be hoped Swansea will at some point be able to call on the box-to-box skills of Ferrie Bodde, the hot-headed Dutch midfielder who, before damaging cruciate ligaments, had attracted £4m worth of interest from the former Swansea manager Roberto Martínez, now at Wigan Athletic. Fans will also be wishing for a big breakthrough season at the top level for young Joe Allen, a crowd favourite and already a Wales international.

A relegation scrap is on the cards, though the Swans have the tools to survive, especially if they stick to their principles and keep passing it around at pace; there are plenty of lumpen Premier League sides who will struggle to cope. Sadly, matching the achievements of the Toshack era – a series of wins against the big boys, time at the top of the table during the business end of the season, a high finish – will be one ask too many. But then that's a failing of modern football, not of Swansea City.

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