Louis van Gaal had barely got his feet under the desk at Manchester United when Swansea came to Old Trafford very early in the season and gave him an indication of the size of the job he had in front of him by beating us 2-1.
Of course, this was back in the days when we basically had no defenders and LvG thought it would be a good time to introduce a defensive system which we were completely unaccustomed to.
When David Moyes took us to Swansea in one of his very first games in charge, we beat them 4-1 and optimism flowed like the River Tawe.
So… you never can tell…
What we do know is that despite looking nothing like Manchester United and despite playing nothing like Manchester United, we are currently sitting in third in the Premier League and still very much alive in the FA Cup.
The season will never be regarded as a classic no matter what happens from here on in but we’re generally heading in the right direction again.
This one is similar to our recent matches in that it’s a fixture we really should be winning but, knowing us this season, we’ll make it as difficult as possible for ourselves.
To be fair, Swansea aren’t sitting in ninth position because they’re pushovers and many of their matches this season have been close affairs and defeats at home have generally been by a single goal. The obvious exception to this was when Chelsea came here a few weeks ago and stuffed them 5-0 after going 1-0 ahead within seconds of the game starting to throw any plans Garry Monk had of containing them out of the window before he’d even taken to his seat.
I doubt very much we’ll be seeing five goals here today as I think a low-scoring affair is very much on the cards.