Middlesbrough host Luke Williams and his Swansea City side in the opening game of the 2024/25 season.
Boro will get their 2024/25 Championship season underway on Saturday, August 10th, at the Riverside Stadium.
Middlesbrough host Luke Williams’ Swansea City in their season opener in a 12:30pm BST kick-off.
Williams was appointed Swansea manager on January 5th, 2024. The Welsh outfit were 16th in the Championship when the 43-year-old took over in January so there has not been too much improvement in terms of league position.
Swansea ended 2023/24 sat 14th in the second division, 12 points behind Michael Carrick’s men.
The Swans did not have a great pre-season either, with their only victory coming against Rio Ave on August 3rd.
In terms of transfers, Williams has brought four new first-team players to the club, with the standout signing being Goncalo Franco, who joined from Portuguese side, Moreirense.
Luke Williams comments suggest Swansea City may struggle against Middlesbrough
As well as only being able to sign four players so far this summer, Swansea have lost a number of stars.
So far, a staggering 13 players have departed the Swansea.com Stadium in the current transfer window.
This leaves the Welsh side still very much ill-prepared for the upcoming Championship season and their meeting with Middlesbrough.
Speaking earlier this week, as per BBC Sport, Williams admitted Swansea are still not finished building their squad.
He said: “I think we haven’t finished building the squad and I think there are going to be a number of other clubs in the same situation as us.
“But we’re confident we are going to have the correct numbers but also the quality we really desire as well, when we finish building this squad.
“I think expectations can be dangerous, so you try to control what you can control and trust the people who you work with that things are going to get done.
“We have to try to be calm and do the best we can and trust things will be done in correct way”.
Michael Carrick and Middlesbrough can capitalise on Swansea problem
Swansea are set to go into 2024/25 in a somewhat similar situation to the one Middlesbrough found themselves in during the previous campaign.
After a number of key players left the club in 2023, Boro struggled for form early in the campaign as Carrick looked to rebuild his first-team squad.
The Teessiders failed to win their opening five league games and this greatly hampered Middlesbrough’s promotion chances.
However, Carrick and co. are not expected to face that same problem going into the new campaign.
Middlesbrough have kept hold of all their key players and been smart with their summer transfer business so far.
Swansea, on the other hand, look underprepared for Saturday, and any further additions they make before the game will not have time to be embedded into the team anyway.
As a result, it should, on paper, prove a fairly easy win for Middlesbrough as they aim to continue their end-of-season form from 2023/24, which saw them lose just one of their last 12 league matches.