Jay Fulton and Kasey Palmer have earned the praise of Swansea City head coach Steve Cooper for their roles in lifting the club to second place in the Championship table.
Both players scored in the Swans’ 2-0 victory at home to Stoke City last night – a win that ended the visitors’ five-game unbeaten run and moved Cooper’s men into the automatic promotion places.
Only Reading – who have taken a remarkable 22 points from eight games and are seven points clear at the top – sit above Swansea, although Bournemouth and Bristol City may alter that picture after tonight’s round of matches.
Cooper was full of admiration for Fulton after his stunning strike. The Scottish midfielder nonchalantly used the outside of his right boot to steer the ball into the top-left corner to give his side a deserved lead in the 30th minute.
Palmer’s first goal for his new club three minutes from time wrapped up a first win in four games for Swansea and his courageous, stooping header typified his team’s greater tenacity and commitment.
Cooper said: “Jay Fulton was excellent and showed what a quality player he is. He is a brilliant professional and team-mate.
“His goal will grab the headlines but he does a lot of stuff that goes unnoticed by everyone except the coaching staff.
“I thought it was an excellent finish. Nobody quite realised it was a goal for a second, but it was a brilliant finish.
“It was a good scoreline and it was another clean sheet.
“I thought we were excellent in the first half in terms of our general play – as good as we have been all season in how we want to play the game.
“It would have been easy to sulk after that penalty decision at Bristol last weekend but I thought we showed an excellent mentality and attitude.
“Things changed tactically in the second half and we had to work hard to get a foothold in the game. Then Kasey came on and wound things up.”
“We want our No.10s or attacking midfield players to run forward and get into the box.
“Kasey carried that on and that’s excellent. We had to make some changes. It’s inevitable now that you’ll teams make changes just because of the nature of the schedule.
“I thought Yan Dhanda did that brilliantly today. He could have got two goals, one through a combination where he hit the post and also he got himself in and he’s overrun it. He’s a bit disappointed he didn’t score, but I thought he did well tonight, Yan.
“I’m pleased for the boys that came in today. Nobody got dropped. I’ve explained to the players that we’re going to need everyone. You might play great one game and not be in the team the next one because you need a rest.”
For Stoke manager Michael O’Neill, it was a rare defeat on the road just a few days after experiencing the high of beating Brentford 3-2 at the weekend.
He said: “It is our first defeat of the season away from home. We didn’t start well and it was a poor goal to concede in the first half.
“I thought their second goal was offside but over the course of the game we didn’t do enough to win. We didn’t get to the pace of the game quickly enough and we didn’t handle the pressure they put on us.
“We were still in the game at 1-0 but we didn’t create enough chances. We are missing key players at the moment.
“We’ve had a good start to the season but this is a disappointment. We’ve got to put it behind us and move on.”
Stoke’s Wales goalkeeper Adam Davies was taken off at half-time with a knee injury and O’Neill added: “He has a knee injury after taking a bang and he’ll be scanned. We don’t know the extent of it yet.”
