WE MUST ALL PULL TOGETHER
Clement demanding a united front to drag his floundering Swans to Prem safety
THE Champions League trophy arrived in Cardiff last night as the city took custody of the famous cup ahead of hosting the final in six weeks’ time.
Some 34 miles along the Welsh coastline, Paul Clement has another well-known prize on his mind as he plots a route to survival for Swansea.
The Swans are two points adrift of safety after losing five of their last six games – and as they host Stoke, Clement has a clear message for his players.
He said: “I’ve told them what we’re preparing for is a World Cup final – and the next game will be the same.
“But we’ve got to deal with this one against Stoke because if we don’t, we might not have a World Cup final in the next game. We’ve got a lot of good energy around the players and they are upbeat about what can be achieved. We know we’ve not done well enough recently. But we can still do this.”
Swansea were five points clear of the bottom three at the start of March. But they have failed to win since beating Burnley on March 4.
The Swans have lost to relegation rivals Bournemouth and Hull, and drawn with 19thplaced Middlesbrough.
But Clement is refusing to believe his players have been complacent during their winless run.
He added: “My players didn’t get too comfortable being out of the relegation zone because to get to that position, we had to fight and scrap for everything.
“We knew that as quick as we could get into that position, we could go back the other way – and we have spoken about that all the time.
“So it hasn’t been through complacency or taking our eye
off the ball with what we’ve needed to do.”
Swansea are back at the Liberty Stadium to host Stoke after back-to-back defeats at West Ham and Watford (below).
The Swans have only lost to Arsenal and Tottenham at home under Clement, and will fancy their chances against a mid-table Potters side. And Clement is expecting to take on a different Stoke team to the one he faced with Chelsea as a No.2 to Carlo Ancelotti.
Mark Hughes will be looking to achieve a fourth successive top-10 finish with Stoke, who are 11th. Clement said: “They were more direct under Tony Pulis, they had four centrebacks and massive strikers.
“I remember at Chelsea we would always be worried about long throws and talk about it.
“We put a jumper in front of the long throws, we had Salomon Kalou and he got booked for doing it.
“Carlo Ancelotti was saying to us, ‘How do we stop this?’ Ray Wilkins told him, ‘Just don’t kick it out for a throw-in, give away a corner instead’.
“But they are certainly a different side now. They have more footballers and matchwinners – Marko Arnautovic and Xherdan Shaqiri are outstanding players.”
Swansea vice-captain Jack Cork is still crocked with an ankle injury, while a hernia problem rules Wayne Routledge out of the Stoke clash.