Swansea City: Ashley Williams backs 'warrior' Wilfried Bony

Swansea skipper Ashleigh Williams looks on as Wilfried Bony is shown the red card by referee Jonathan Moss

Swansea City captain Ashley Williams says Wilfried Bony will bounce back from his sending off in the Premier League defeat against Southampton.

The Ivory Coast striker was shown two yellow cards for fouls in the first 39 minutes at the Liberty Stadium.

Despite being left short-handed, Swansea held out until the final 10 minutes before Saints substitute Victor Wanyama finally broke their resistance.

"He's disappointed now and I've got no worries about Wilf," Williams said.

"He's one of the best professionals I've ever worked with, trains like a warrior every day and I'm sure he'll bounce back."

One positive for Williams was the performance of Federico Fernandez, making his full Premier League debut alongside the skipper at centre-back after Jordi Amat was ruled out for up to six weeks with a knee injury.

"He did really well and I enjoyed playing with him," said Williams of Fernandez, the Argentina defender who joined in an £8m deal from Napoli in the summer.

"He's obviously a very good player but it's difficult when you have a new partnership, it's going to take time to get used to a few things.

"There are times you can't talk about it and you just need to know... we've been trying to nail stuff down and it's going to take longer.

"But I think congratulations to him because he had a very good game in my eyes."

The loss to Southampton was the second successive defeat for Swansea after last week's reverse at Chelsea.

"This one hurts a little bit more as well. We don't like to lose two on the spin, no one does, especially at home," Williams added.

"We felt we worked hard, worked in our shape, kept our shape and limited their chances.

"They're a passing team so obviously they had a lot of possession but they didn't get anything clear-cut apart from a couple of headers and the goal.

"We won't stew over this one too long but there's obviously lessons to be learnt, which we need to do quickly because we've got another game and we want to put things right.

Swansea are back in action on Tuesday night in the third round of the League Cup, where they face Everton at the Liberty Stadium.