Swansea City midfielder Ki Sung Yueng says the club are approaching crunch time ahead of their most significant match of the season.
The Swans host West Bromwich Albion next Saturday, aware that another defeat could leave them a huge seven points adrift of safety at the bottom of the Premier League.
A victory, though – which would be their first in eight matches – could conceivably close that gap to a single point.
The 2-1 loss at Stoke City saw Paul Clement’s side drop to bottom for the first time this season. They have taken just one point from their last seven matches and no team in the top flight has scored fewer goals.
“We have to show what we can do on Saturday on the pitch – we have to perform,” said Ki.
“There’s no point training well and working hard all week without performing at the weekend because the games are what matter.
“West Brom is a massive game for us. We have to get some more points on the board before Christmas and we will try our best to do that starting next weekend.”
Things began well when Wilfried Bony netted his first goal since returning to the club in only the third minute but Xherdan Shaqiri and Mame Biram Diouf put Stoke ahead before half-time.
The result ramped up the pressure on Clement but Ki insists the players are to blame and has told his team-mates to dig in.
“We were right in the game throughout. After we scored we were controlling the game, but we conceded twice before half-time which was really disappointing,” Ki added.
“In the second half we had some chances but we couldn’t find the net. It was a very disappointing result – we can’t say anything else.
“It’s difficult to say what’s going wrong. If we knew maybe we wouldn’t be at the bottom of the league.
“We just have to keep working. In the first 30 minutes against Stoke we were in control and scored a goal. It was better.
“But after that we made little mistakes which cost us two goals.
“We know that we have to make more chances to score more goals.”
