Carlos Carvalhal has dismissed the notion that Swansea City are back under pressure and insisted: “Pressure? That’s the situation for people in Syria and Afghanistan.”
The Swans manager is hoping his club’s home game against West Ham on Saturday beats the freeze and his players beat West Ham, who are three points above them in the Premier League table.
Carvalhal’s side lost their 10-game unbeaten run against Brighton last weekend and in doing so they slipped back into the bottom three.
But he insisted: “We were more under pressure when we were six points adrift, so I don’t think there is pressure.
“In football there is pressure to try and win and be better than the opponent and to find different arguments. The team that plays better tends to win and that is what we want to do on Saturday.
“To me, and the players, there is nothing different. Pressure is being in Syria and Afghanistan and those kinds of situations.”
Four clubs separate Swansea in 18th position in the table from the Hammers who are in 13th spot. But such is the tightness of the table in the bottom half that a win for Carvalhal’s side could see them overtake those intermediate teams, depending on results elsewhere.
Even allowing for their defeat at Brighton, Swansea still have three wins in their most recent five league games – a better record than any club outside of the Champions League places.
West Ham beat the Swans back in September with a goal in the 90th minute, but since then they have replaced Slaven Bilic with David Moyes as manager without finding sufficient consistency to move away from the danger zone.
Carvalhal added: “We respect West Ham. They have a very good coach and good players also. The season is under expectations I believe for West Ham.
“We are doing well in our home games and I think the challenge will be for the fans also. It’s important what the fans give to us in all games, but especially the last games, they were really very powerful to support this team.”
With only six points separating nine clubs, including the Swans, Carvalhal believes the edge lies with those teams like his own whose form has been on an upward curve in recent weeks, rather than those who are on the slide – even if they have more points.
“The advantage is we have come from the bottom and we are progressing, we are only going in one direction.
“We were bad and a long way from the line of the water, but now we are here and we have achieved more points than a lot of sides in recent games.
“So, we are strong because we are winning points against good teams even if we lost one which can happen to any team in the world.
“We are winning more than we are losing, we are progressing and that makes us stronger and stronger.
“It is harder when you have a team that was in 10th place in November and starts to lose and you end up battling to stay in the league.
“Mentally, that is more difficult, but this is all theory. In practice, it comes down to fighting for three points at 3pm on Saturday.”
