PURE SWANSEA: ‘We won’t change what we’re about’: Midwinter takes leaders to Aberystwyth fortress

Jack Midwinter has vowed Pure Swansea will not change their approach for Friday’s top-of-the-table Novira Cymru South trip to Aberystwyth Town, as the leaders look to bounce back from their first defeat of the season.

Pure travel to Park Avenue (8pm kick-off) with a single point separating the sides after six games each, and the two clubs share another distinction: they are the division’s top scorers, both averaging three goals a game.

“Aberystwyth are a historic club in Wales. I think they’ve spent all their existence apart from last year in the Welsh Premier League, so they are a big club in terms of Welsh football and one that we’ll look forward to going to visit and showing the best part of ourselves,” said Midwinter.

“They’ve played the majority of the game this season at home, so they’ve made that a bit of a fortress. We’re going to look forward to going there and challenging ourselves against them.”

The Pure manager said both sides would know plenty about each other after a fortnight in close proximity at the top.

“We’ve learned a little bit about them and I’m sure they’ve learned a little bit about us in the last couple of weeks, but we’ll prepare ourselves like we would any other game, and hopefully the best version of us is good enough on the night,” he said.

‘We back what we have’

Despite the cup exit, Midwinter has no intention of tinkering with the style that took Pure to the top.

“We won’t be changing how we play or set up. We back what we have on the pitch in terms of attack and ability,” he said.

“We’re not a naive team. Maybe it did show a little bit on the weekend, a little bit of naivety in terms of the rotations we made and the mistakes that were made, but we’ll put that right in training this week.

“We won’t change what we’re about. We won’t go into any game trying to be different to what we are, because that’s what’s made us successful in the past 12 to 18 months, doing things our way, and we’ll continue to do that wherever the opponent is on a match day.”

Ingram in the frame after Bosnia injury

Midwinter is hopeful of having Dan Ingram back in the squad, the right-back having picked up an injury on Wales duty at the Regions’ Cup.

Ingram has been a key creative outlet from full-back this season, with five assists to his name, three of them for Casey Coughlin in the win over Baglan Dragons, and he added another for Wales in Bosnia.

“Dan picked up an injury unfortunately when he was in Bosnia representing Wales,” said Midwinter. “He trained this week and he should train again tomorrow, so hopefully he’ll be back in the squad for the weekend’s game, but it all depends on how Dan gets over the next couple of days.”

With both sides scoring freely and a point between them, the leaders will be looking to reassert their authority at a ground where Aberystwyth have been hard to beat.

Author

Richard Bond

Swansea-based sports journalist.
Twitter: @RichBond00
Email: RichardBond@swanseabaynews.com