Commentary
Swansea City falls back on hard times, into relegation zone
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Apr 5, 2017
But the Swans have again hit on hard times, dropping back into the bottom three with a 3-1 loss to Tottenham at home on Wednesday. Clement termed the defeat "heart-breaking" as Swansea led 1-0 in the 88th minute before conceding three goals.
The loss coupled with Hull City's 4-2 win over Middlesbrough dropped Swansea two points into the relegation zone with seven games to play.
Swansea City Schedule:
April 8 -- at West Ham United (15th)
April 15 -- Watford (10th)
April 22 -- Stoke City (12th)
April 30 -- at Manchester United (6th)
May 6 -- Everton (7th)
May 13 -- at Sunderland (20th)
May 21 -- West Bromwich (8th)
"The fact we've come out with nothing is heart-breaking," said Clement. "The players know the situation. We're in the bottom three and there are seven games to go, and West Ham [Swansea's next opponent] are a team who've had their own troubles recently so we have to go there believing we can get a result. We need to get a result, especially in the next two games because the games are running out now."
Spaniard Fernando Llorente is Swansea City's top scorer with 11 league goals but he hasn't scored in the last month and has missed the last two games with an ankle injury. Clement hopes to have him back against West Ham on Saturday. The Swans need Llorente as they've only scored two goals in the last four games.
"Things are very tight still. There are seven games to go and a lot of points to play for," Clement added. "We have to be encouraged by our performance for long periods of that game. The players put in a good physical effort and we have to dust ourselves off and go again -- we have to be professional. We have to know how to deal with defeat and go again on Saturday."
In Swansea City's favor is a relatively soft schedule. West Ham has lost five games in a row to drop to 15th place, and no Swans' opponent is currently higher than sixth in the standings. Hull City, by contrast, must play two top four teams: Manchester City on Saturday and Tottenham in the season finale.
2 comments about "Swansea City falls back on hard times, into relegation zone".
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Bottom line Swansea is just not an NPL team. But the problems goes deeper than that it about the few big clubs grabbing all the best soccer players even from up an coming weaker teams. Some good players are even picked up and benched for so longed they become irrelevant. The results are a bunch of teams in NPL that cannot even score even if their lives depended on it. The only exception is Leicester who has some strikers that can actually deliver. The playing fields in Europe must be opened up a little more because I am sick and tired of the same boring ManUs, Chelseas and Barcelonas wining-- what is the joy in that ? To tell you the truth I am more fascinated by Leicester (a team I never heard about) last year and this year than any other team on the planet.. The playing field must change hopefully China can take much more good players so top teams really need to win the old fashion way.
Completely agree, Q TD.
But if you've ever spent time in Europe, you know they do not like cultural change, and are absurdly slow in adopting in some cases. italy spain france and even germany and the uk like things the way they are, and get hostile if you challenge the notion that something is broken. a good example of that is RB in the bunda this season. or how long it took to tryout goal cams.