Carvalhal insists Swansea’s glass is half full
Manager ditches clever analogies after six-game winless streak but has faith in club’s survival
If the decline in the standard of Carlos Carvalhal’s analogies are anything to go by then Swansea truly are back on the slide at exactly the wrong time in the relegation fight. The maverick Portuguese who arrived at the Liberty at the end of last year delivering delicious bon mots involving sardines, lobsters, Ferraris and crematoriums was at the training ground yesterday resorting to the “glass half full” adage. However, perhaps the unoriginality did not matter as this was definitely a cliche he wanted to get off his chest.
Carvalhal has heard all the renewed negativity concerning his team’s plight as they sit one point above the bottom three with three games to go, and he knows there are whispers about his ability to finish off the saviour act.
Under his management, Sheffield Wednesday fell despairingly short of the play-offs in the previous two seasons and the theory goes that this eccentric character tightens up at the business end. If that is a cruel assessment of the 52-year-old – and it surely is when one considers the competitiveness of the Championship – then perhaps it is nothing to the criticisms of the six-game winless streak that has pulled the Swans back into the dogfight.
A trip to Bournemouth awaits tomorrow, followed by home games against the two clubs directly below them, in Southampton and Stoke respectively. Yet while the bum may squeak, Carvalhal is adamant the conviction should not waver and demands any doubters remember the position they were in when he took over on Dec 28 following Paul Clement’s sacking.
“We were five points adrift at the bottom and in last place,” Carvalhal said. “We were dead – nobody believed. So when you get to this moment where we are not in the relegation zone and with it in our hands, it is fantastic, not negative.
“We play three games, two at home against teams near us in the table and, when we arrived, 100 per cent of people said this was impossible. Everybody said this would be a kind of miracle. But when you have a glass of water it can be half-full or half-empty. It depends on the eyes.”
The problem is three points in 18 tends to drain the vessels, no matter how brimming they happened to be after Carvalhal’s stunning start of 17 in 27, particularly when only two goals have been scored in this spell.
“Where have we lost?” Carvalhal said. “At home to Tottenham and Chelsea away to Manchester United, City and we also lose [away] to Brighton. What do you want better than this? I know we’ve not won in six, but I’ve tried to make the players understand, it is not because we did something wrong, like a mistake.
“We are a team who have taken 20 points in half a season, with still games to come and with that form over a whole season, you could almost fight for the Europa League. If the calendar puts us against the strongest teams in this path, it is normal we don’t win and that has not changed my view at all. The way we played against Chelsea [in the 1-0 defeat last Saturday], the way they are training, these are positive feelings, the opposite of nerves … the very opposite.”
Doth the manager protest too much? In fairness, the recent run of fixtures was made only more ghastly by the postponement of the home match against Southampton in March. “If we had picked up the points then we could already be safe,” Carvalhal pointed out. Instead, Tuesday’s encounter has the hallmarks of a classic six-pointer and, depending on this weekend’s results, could even send one team down.
Carvalhal also disputed accusations that Swansea have shrunk back into their shell. “We go to United, City, Chelsea and so on and we try to play our football,” he said. “But they have extra quality and we must defend more than we attack. But if you ask me if this is our intention to play like that, it’s not. We are playing with quality and living well with the pressure, and that is why we are optimistic.”