Swansea City vs Brentford LIVE!
Brentford must banish the enormous disappointment of botching the chance to seal automatic promotion to the Premier League when they travel to face Swansea City in the first leg of their Championship play-off semi-final tie tonight.
After a costly defeat at Stoke in their penultimate fixture of the regular campaign, Thomas Frank's Bees entered the final day of the second-tier season needing to beat relegation-threatened Barnsley and hope that West Brom did not win against QPR.
And while the Baggies were held by Rangers at The Hawthorns, Brentford slumped to a second successive loss courtesy of Clarke Oduor's stoppage-time winner that ensured survival for Barnsley and condemned the hosts to a third-place finish and the dreaded play-offs.
Date, time and venue
Swansea vs Brentford is scheduled for a 6:30pm BST kick-off tonight.
The match will be behind closed doors at the Liberty Stadium with no fans due to be present due to government guidelines regarding coronavirus.
Team news
Frank had a full squad to choose from against Barnsley, with Shandon Baptiste and Sergi Canos both back from injury.
How to watch
TV channel: The match will be shown live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Football, and is available via Now TV with a day pass for £9.99, or a three-month pass on offer for £25.
Live stream: Sky Sports subscribers can stream the match online via SkyGo and the SkyGo app, with a mobile month pass available for £5.99.
Prediction: Swansea 1-1 Brentford
These two teams experienced extremely contrasting emotions on the final day, with crushing disappointment for Brentford and sheer euphoria for Swansea.
The hosts will be full of confidence after such an achievement, while much will depend on how Frank is able to rally his troops after their amazing form deserted them at exactly the wrong time.
More often than not - hardly surprising given the significant prize at stake - play-off semi-finals are tight and tense affairs settled by the odd goal.
Brentford to seal a draw here in an even contest before winning more convincingly at home to make it through to Wembley.
Head to head (h2h) history and results
These two sides have met on 86 previous occasions down the years, with Swansea winning 33 matches to Brentford's 31 and 22 draws.
The Bees can take heart from the fact that they have beaten Steve Cooper's side twice already this season, with an impressive 3-0 away win in October followed by a 3-1 success at Griffin Park on Boxing Day.
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