Leroy Fer has admitted Swansea City will back at square one unless they beat Crystal Palace on Saturday.
With the club still anchored to the bottom of the Premier League table, the pressure is mounting on manager Paul Clement.
The club have lost eight of their last 10 games and another reverse would test the loyalty of the American owners who have so far given full backing to Clement and suggested he will be in place to oversee the January transfer window.
The Swans are sure to be in the Premier League’s bottom three at Christmas after Monday’s 3-1 defeat at Everton.
They have 12 points on the board after 18 games, a tally which leaves them four points adrift of safety ahead of this weekend’s key clash with Palace at the Liberty Stadium.
But a victory would take them to 15 points at the halfway point in 2017-18, which would be three more than they had at the same stage last term when Clement came in.
“We have to lift ourselves now and look ahead to Crystal Palace,” said Swans midfielder Fer.
“It’s a massive game for us on Saturday. That is the same with every game right now because we are bottom of the league, but we are at home and we know we need to get some points.
“We have to do the same as last season now. We have to fight back in the second half of the season to make sure we survive.
“We wanted to be in a better position but we haven’t been able to get there. What we have to do now is change things around.”
Fer scored his first Premier League goal in 13 months to put the Swans in front at Everton on Monday.
But Everton scored the first of three avoidable goals in stoppage time before the break and the home side then got the upper hand in the second period.
“We should have played better in the second half,” Fer conceded.
“We did well in the first half, we created some chances, especially down the right with Luciano Narsingh.
“But we conceded some bad goals and they cost us. We can only look ahead now.”
