SWANS TAKE A ‘STEP FORWARD’

GRAHAM Potter praised Courtney Baker-Richardson’s character as the striker bounced back from his Millwall setback by teeing up a big win and a “step forward” in performance from Swansea City.

Potter’s side claimed a 3-0 win over QPR with Baker-Richardson netting the opener, before second-half goals from Connor Roberts and Jay Fulton sealed Swansea’s second win in eight games and moved them up to seventh in the table.

Baker-Richardson’s goal - his first for the club - was Swansea’s first in 291 minutes, and came on his return from suspension after his red card against the Lions earlier this month.

On that occasion the former Coventry man had seen red in just the fifth minute of his league debut for the Swans.

“It’s a better day than he had the last time he played, that’s for sure,” laughed manager Potter.

“I just said to him ‘make sure you last longer than five minutes and we’ll be happy’.

“He was great, he did everything we asked of him, he opened up space for Oli McBurnie and took the fight to the centre-backs.

“It’s a thankless task but an important one because it gave us an outball.”

Potter added: “He has attributes we probably haven’t got in the group, and he is a young player who is desperate to do well and, if he makes a mistake, he will learn from it.

“You don’t hang him out, we win against Millwall which helps take some of the heat off him.

“He is not the shy and retiring character, thats for sure, so he can deal with it but I am pleased with the role he played for the team.

“But it’s not a day to single out anyone as I cannot fault anyone. We tried our best, we were not perfect, we can be better But today we took a step forward in terms of our performance and what we are trying to do.”