CORK URGES SWANSEA TO GET READY FOR CATS
SWANS THRASHED AT SPURS, BUT BRADLEY SAYS HIS MEN WILL RESPOND AGAINST SAFC
Skipper Jack Cork wants Swansea City to shrug off their Tottenham nightmare to focus on this Saturday’s pivotal Premier League clash with Sunderland.
The Welsh club slipped back to the foot of the table following their 5-0 defeat at White Hart Lane, while the Black Cats, who visit the Liberty Stadium this weekend, clambered up to 18th place with a victory over Leicester.
“For the rest of this month, we are playing teams in a similar position to us, so they are games that will define our season,” said midfielder Cork.
The Sunderland crunch is followed by games against West Brom, Middlesbrough, West Ham and Bournemouth. Cork added on swanseacity.net: “We have to make sure we get the results we need in those games.
“We can’t let this result get us down because it’s a massive period ahead.”
A controversial penalty set Spurs off, as doubles from Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen, plus a classy HeungMin Son volley, knocked back Swansea following their epic 5-4 win over Crystal Palace the previous week.
Cork said: “We were doing okay until the penalty, which changed the game. After that, we were second best to everything.
“That reflected in the scoreline. It was an unacceptable performance.
“We are really disappointed especially for the fans who came to support us. It was not the performance or result we wanted to give our supporters.”
The pressure is mounting on American boss Bob Bradley, and keeper Lukasz Fabianski admits that Swansea must improve on their defensive work to move off the bottom of the table again.
“As a team, we didn’t perform well,” admitted Fabianski. “We have to be better, that’s for sure.
“When you are in the position that we are in, I think you have to focus on the basics defensively, we have to keep more clean sheets.
“We have struggled to do that, but good defensive work always give you a chance in the game. If we can improve defensively, it will help us going forward.
“It’s very important part of football. We all have to work together and do our jobs in a proper way. If we do that I think we will be in a better position.”
Bradley vows to get Swansea back on song for the vital visit of David Moyes’ Black Cats. “We know it’s all to play for in the next five or six matches between now and the start of the new year,” said the 58-year-old.
“We will be ready against Sunderland, which will be the start of an all-important run of games that are going to spell out what’s happening.
“We have made progress (since I arrived) and now we have to prove it.
“I am honest and I will say that we were not good enough (at Spurs).
“But I think this game was a different kind of challenge. We didn’t meet it, but now we have to put everything into making sure our mentality is right for the games ahead.
“We had a good effort at Goodison Park and then we were able to find a way to come back and win against Crystal Palace. There is confidence from those two games, and it’s not all lost in a game like (Saturday’s).”