Paul Clement has given up playing “fantasy football” as he attempts to steer Swansea to Premier League safety.
The Swans face relegation rivals Middlesbrough on Sunday with only goal-difference separating the hosts from the drop zone following Hull’s 2-1 victory over West Ham.
Swansea start as big favourites having won their last three home games, but manager Clement gave up predicting results when he was Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant at some of the biggest clubs in Europe.
“I’ve done a list on where the teams are and who has got who in the run-in,” head coach Clement said of the relegation battle.
“But I don’t predict the results because it never works out anything like that in reality.
“In the past, with Carlo, we’ve had our fixtures out and we’ll say, ‘We’re going to get three there, three there, a point there, there’s three’. But afterwards it doesn’t look anything like what we’ve predicted.
“That is fantasy football. It’s not real, so I don’t do it. I don’t say there is a definite three points, or one point, or none. It’s a waste of time.”
Middlesbrough have not won in the league since beating Swansea 3-0 at the Riverside on December 17.
Both clubs have changed managers since then, with Clement replacing Bob Bradley at the start of January and Steve Agnew succeeding Aitor Karanka last month.
I would be naive to think there aren’t players speaking to the families and agents about what happens if we go down.
This will be Agnew’s second game in interim charge and Clement says he was not surprised that Boro chose to change their manager so late in the season.
“They had come off the back end of some bad results and it’s the last throw of the dice for them,” Clement added.
“They were thinking, ‘Can they get that bounce back by bringing in someone new?’. And they thought that was a risk worth taking.
“When we played Leicester [Swansea won 2-0] it was Claudio Ranieri’s last Premier League game. Maybe, if we had caught them in Craig Shakespeare’s first game, you might have said it was a different situation.
“You could look at it and think, ‘Oh we got fortunate with the timing of the Leicester situation – it worked for us there’.
“But you can’t get too tied up with things that go on outside your team.”
Swansea’s American owners Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien are in south Wales over the next few days and will watch the home games against Middlesbrough and Tottenham before meeting with Clement to discuss future plans for the club.
“We’re aware what happens when a club goes from the top tier to one level down,” Clement said.
“The budget implications are massive and we have players who will want to continue to play at the top level – whether that be here or in another country.
“I would be naive to think there aren’t players speaking to the families and agents about what happens if we go down.
“We have to be open to that – it happens all the time – but we are focused on staying in this league.”
