Matos' Swansea like Klopp's Liverpool - Mowbray

Blackburn Rovers boss Tony Mowbray says Swansea City under Vitor Matos remind him of Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool.

Swansea turned on the style as they bounced back to form by beating Blackburn 4-0 on Saturday.

Rovers had arrived at the Swansea.com Stadium in good form, but were overwhelmed as Matos' team registered their biggest victory of the season.

Mowbray said Swansea's triumph was built on their "amazingly good" intensity – and that brought back memories of Klopp's Liverpool.

Matos, who took charge of the Swans last November, spent five years on Klopp's Anfield staff.

"My previous Blackburn team, particularly through Covid, played Liverpool quite a little bit," Mowbray said.

"We weren't in the Premier League but we played Liverpool in Covid just to get their team up to speed, we played them twice I think at Anfield and once at Ewood Park.

"Liverpool of those days were absolutely amazing because they didn't let you breathe, and you can see bits of that with this [Swansea] team. There seemed to be three men closing every one of our players down."

Swansea's triumph means they are second in the Championship, with 26 points banked from their first 13 games of the season.

The vastly experienced Mowbray, 62, reckons Swansea look like a team capable of contending for promotion this season – although he warned that their tactical approach will not always bring rewards.

"I think when you play against the best teams, the coaches will know that you're number one at high pressing, know you're going to swarm all over the ball and the pitch," he said of Swansea's game plan.

"[They will] just not take risks, just turn you around and let you swarm over nothing because there's nobody trying to pass it out from the back.

"They'll be kicking every goal-kick long. They'll be playing a big centre-forward and trying to get two little fast guys running in behind."

He added: "It's great coaching, it's great philosophy, but I'm saying there are coaches in this league who'll be watching.

"We're only 13 games in, [Matos] has got a lot of football still to play and there'll be a lot of teams where they won't be able to [do that] because there'll be nothing to press."

Stephen Eustaquio, Joseph Opoku and Filip Lissah struck to put Swansea 3-0 up at half-time before Ross Stewart's fine second-half goal condemned Blackburn to their heaviest defeat since April 2024.

Mowbray's frustration was that his team failed to adapt to Swansea's approach despite working on a game plan last week.

"If you'd have seen some of our football this year, it's been pretty good, but against that intensity, we really struggled," he said.

"We shouldn't be playing around the edges of our box and giving a team who are number one pressing in the league the chance to do what they're really good at."