By NFFC

Steve Cooper's men have conceded the fewest amount of goals in the Sky Bet Championship this season, just 13, and Hughton knows they will make life exceptionally difficult for his side when the teams meet in South Wales this weekend.

Speaking ahead of the game, he said: "Swansea are a team who are doing very well in the league and they've added quality players to their squad recently. They're a very resolute side who don't concede a lot of goals so that will present a big challenge for us away from home. It's a one-off game though and we will need to perform much better than we did against Middlesbrough to make it through to the next round.

"The FA Cup certainly presents some of our players who haven't featured reguarly to get some game time but at the same time, we're trying to build some continuity. As with any competition, we're heading into the game looking to progress to the next round and it's about trying to build on our recent good form and make sure we continue to lift our confidence levels even further.

"Thankfully for me, I've got a really good group of lads who always train really well and I've always been impressed with the attitude in training of those lads who haven't had as much game time as they would have liked."

Hughton will be without the services of Ryan Yates after the midfielder limped off injured in Wednesday's defeat to Middlesbrough and the Forest boss says he is expecting to make significant changes to his starting line-up for this weekend's cup tie.

He said: "Ryan felt his calf during the game and at one stage he looked like he could continue but that proved not to be the case. It's a little bit sore this morning and he'll certainly miss Saturday's game but the next few days will determine how long he's going to be out for and that's a big blow for us considering how consistent Ryan's performances have been.

"Fouad Bachirou has been back in training for a couple of weeks now so he will be in the squad for this weekend but Harry Arter and Jack Colback are still a little way off returning yet. We're conscious that Fouad hasn't played competitively since September but he has trained really well and we're really pleased to be able to put him back into the squad.

"I think it's fair to say we will make a number of changes but as we showed in the last round, we have a group of players who haven't started the last few league games who will want to come into the side and put on a good performance. All of those players have terrific fitness levels, they have trained really well and you always hope the occasion will help to lift them."