Leon Britton is ready to ride to the rescue for Swansea City – again – with a comeback against Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup.
The veteran midfielder has not played since October 21 but has recovered from a pelvic injury and could return in Tuesday night’s fifth round replay at the Liberty Stadium.
Swans manager Carlos Carvalhal revealed Britton has been training fully with the rest of the squad and may be eased back against the Championship club, before the crucial 10-match Premier League run-in.
“He is training, he is fully fit with his colleagues and he is an option in our hands,” said Carvalhal.
“He is experienced, of course. He is like the other players, he has very good abilities, so let’s see what happens between now and the end of the season.”
Britton has only played four games this season, but his campaign has been far from uneventful, having played under former manager Paul Clement, stepped up to the coaching team, and then stood in as caretaker manager, before rejoining the playing squad.
If he plays against Wednesday, then Britton will take his Swansea career into a 16th year since his December 2002 arrival from West Ham.
The 35-year-old would also make his first appearance since Carvalhal arrived at the club.
The Portuguese boss claimed after the first match against his former club that a replay at home to Wednesday was the last thing he, or his players, needed.
But he has now stressed that the five Cup games have helped the recovery in League form, but which came to a halt with Saturday’s 4-1 defeat at Brighton.
“I look to the positives, all our squad is involved, and some players from the Under-23s are playing.
“They are all ready to play. This is the sixth game in the competition in a short period so they are all involved even if they have not had the opportunity in the first 11. They are doing well and there are a lot of positives.”
With the club now having fallen back into the relegation zone, Carvalhal has been anxious not to threaten confidence levels and has wisely claimed the blame for himself from Saturday’s heavy beating – the worst result of his two-month spell in charge.
“I accept the responsibility. We made the team unbalanced because we wanted to win and were not happy.
“We did it against Watford and Burnley and it worked, but I take the responsibility as it was 1-0 and it was balanced until I made another change and put more in attack.
“We had Luciano (Narsingh) on the right, Tammy (Abraham), Jordan (Ayew) and Andre (Ayew) so we had a lot of attackers.
“We opened a lot of spaces. If we scored we could have won the game, but we knew if they scored it would be very difficult so it is not the responsibility of the team, it is my responsibility.
“We understand what happened so that has not had a negative impact on the team.”
