This Swansea star must be kept quiet to ensure Southampton remain unbeaten

Southampton look like an unstoppable machine at the moment, flying high inside the Championship playoff positions.

Indeed, after comfortably swatting Blackburn Rovers aside 3-0 last time out, the Saints look very secure in consolidating a playoff position, with a late surge into the automatic promotion places no longer a pipedream.

Instead, only three points separate Tonda Eckert's Saints from Ipswich Town in the second at the time writing.

But it isn't a foregone conclusion that Southampton will extend their unbeaten run to a jaw-dropping 19 games in all competitions when making the trip to Wales, as the topsy-turvy Swans can pull off a fantastic result on their day.

Southampton will have to be on their A-Game to overcome Swansea

The Saints do seem immune to complacency at the moment, as every game sees Eckert and Co. give their full-throttle all, in pulling off a result.

Still, the players at Eckert's disposal are only human, and Vitor Matos' men do have an impressive record on home soil this season.

Ten wins have fallen into the Swans' lap on their own patch this season so far, and they managed to collect a lively 2-2 draw against Middlesbrough last time out in Wales, who are deep in the promotion race, alongside Eckert's side.

Therefore, they will be up for the test of collecting a scalp and ruining Southampton's long, drawn-out unbeaten spell, but Southampton do have a very positive record, in recent history, when travelling to Swansea.

Amazingly, the South Coast team last lost on their travels to Wales back in 2017, with three wins and one draw collected, since that 2-1 defeat when the teams were Premier League regulars.

All of these on paper statistics will be thrown out the window, though, with the Swans also boasting the league's top goalscorer in Zan Vipotnik, who won't be fazed one bit by facing one of the division's most in-form sides.

Southampton have to keep Vipotnik quiet

Despite languishing in an indifferent 14th spot in the second tier table currently, Swansea have surprisingly the division's most lethal finisher in their ranks, in the potent Slovenian.

The devastatingly efficient 24-year-old is five ahead of his nearest rival in Haji Wright at the very top of the goalscoring charts, with a sizeable 21 strikes next to his name, for the season so far.

He very rarely needs a second invitation to ripple the back of the net, with the number nine only averaging a measly 19.5 touches per Championship game, before often making his presence known

Still, he manages to leave a lasting mark on contests with his ice-cold finishing ability, meaning the likes of Taylor Harwood-Bellis for the visitors will have to be switched on all game, when attempting to thwart the deadly marksman.

With an outrageous six goals collected across his last four outings for club and country, it's not the greatest shock in the world to see Eckert pinpoint Vipotnik as one of Swansea's greatest threats, in his pre-match comments, with the German noting that it will require a "big job" to keep him quiet all match.

Yet, Southampton have continued to stand firm, no matter the challenges thrown at them, under Eckert to date, so the hope will be that all the pre-match chatter isn't backed up, as Southampton completely nullify the lethal number nine.

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