Swansea City: 'We've pulled others into relegation battle' - Clement
- Published
Swansea City boss Paul Clement believes his side have dragged rivals into the relegation battle in which they have been embroiled this season.
Beating Southampton 2-1 on Tuesday ensured Swans' first back-to-back wins of the season.
On the same night Leicester lost 1-0 at Burnley and Middlesbrough drew 1-1 at home with West Bromwich Albion.
Swansea, Leicester and Boro are tied on 21 points and Clement said: "The table looks more healthy."
Swansea are 17th, one place above automatic relegation with reigning Premier League title holders Leicester one place above them and Middlesbrough in 15th.
Two more wins than Boro
A stunning 3-2 win at Liverpool came before Alfie Mawson and Gylfi Sigurdsson goals ensured victory over Saints at Liberty Stadium.
Clement said: "The results that we've got have pulled a couple of other teams into that battle now at the bottom."
The Swansea manager's reign officially began with an FA Cup defeat at Hull followed by a 4-0 home drubbing by Arsenal in the league.
But the wins against Liverpool and Southampton followed to boost Swans' survival hopes, taking their wins tally to six, one more than Leicester and two more than Boro.
Tottenham Hotspur host Middlesbrough on Saturday while Swansea go to Manchester City on Sunday in the 13:30 GMT kick-off before Leicester host Manchester United at 16:00 GMT.
Sigurdsson earns Clement's praise
Sigurdsson struck Swansea's winner after Shane Long replied to Mawson's opener and Clement praised the Icelandic midfielder.
"Gylfi has fantastic delivery at set-plays and he produced a wonderful finish after good work from Luciano Narsingh, who made an instant impact," said Clement.
"But I would like to comment on Gylfi's work ethic. People have asked me if he is all right playing on the left, but I haven't had a conversation with him about that.
"He has done everything that has been asked of him."
Swansea's attitude also pleased their boss, who added: "It was a mixed performance, but a massive, massive result against a good side.
"They had a really good 3-0 victory over Leicester in their last league game and then they got a massive win at Anfield (in the EFL Cup), so we have beaten a really good side here.
"We did some really good things. We didn't start very well - we gave them too much space in the first 10 minutes.
"But once we got to grips with that, we had a good spell into half-time and then defended well when there were a lot of balls into our box late on."
- Published31 January 2017
- Published31 January 2017