Swansea City: Carvalhal welcomes relegation pressure

Swansea City manager Carlos Carvalhal said his side will thrive under the pressure of a relegation run-in.

The Swans slid closer to the drop zone after defeat to Chelsea.

Swansea remain 17th, but rivals Southampton's win at Bournemouth moved them to within a point of Carvalhal's side going into the final three fixtures where Swansea face Saints and also host 19th-placed Stoke City.

Carvalhal played down talk of pressure. "We will do our job," he explained.

"What we must do is keep the momentum of the performance in the last games, because if we play like that we will achieve the necessary points to stay in the competition," he said.

Swansea's unbeaten home run of six matches in the Premier League was halted by an efficient Chelsea in what was a disappoint performance from the hosts.

They travel to Bournemouth next weekend before the Southampton and Stoke matches.

"In this moment, all clubs playing under pressure - and my team playing under pressure gave a good answer," Carvalhal said.

"It is something very positive if we play like that under pressure, the pressure is welcome because we play in a good way to stay in the division."

Swansea have recovered from being five points adrift at the bottom when Carvalhal took over in December and the former Sheffield Wednesday manager said his side have exceeded expectations already.

"When I arrived we were five points to the teams above, we depended on others to try and get out of this position," he said.

"In this moment we just depend on us, it's something we have in our hands, something we didn't have when I arrived.

"When I arrived… all journalists used miracle in their questions: 'Do I think I will do a miracle?' I remember very well the first day. Nobody believed we could jump positions.

"But we have the things in our hands, we depend on us so we must look to the games that we have and try to achieve the necessary points to stay in the division."