Maths is not Williams' strong point

15 April 2014 22:16

Swansea skipper Ashley Williams believes it is "impossible to know" how many points will ultimately guarantee Barclays Premier League survival this season.

Swansea are just three points above the danger zone ahead of next Saturday's trip to Newcastle.

But with two of the teams below them - Fulham and Cardiff - both winning last weekend, it has tightened things up in an increasingly-frantic race to avoid the drop.

Swansea have succes sive home games against Aston Villa and Southampton following their trip to Tyneside, but Fulham's victory over Norwich three days ago and Cardiff winning at Southampton upped the ante.

"It's impossible to know (what Swansea require from their last four games) because of what a strange season it has been, both at the top and the bottom," Williams said.

"It is different to normal seasons as everyone is still in the mix. But we really need points.

"You always look at other results. That is normal, we are like anyone.

"You knew a day like Saturday was going to happen because teams are not going to keep losing every week.

"That day came and we knew this would be tough, but we have to concentrate on ourselves and if you are going to be in a relegation battle I would prefer to be in our position with points on the board."

Swansea have collected just nine points from a possible 30 since Garry Monk took on the club's head coach role in early February following manager Michael Laudrup's departure.

Despite drawing at Arsenal and then beating Norwich last month, successive 1-0 losses to Hull and Chelsea means they have been unable to pull away from relegation trouble.

"It's just so bizarre," Williams added. "We train well, we set up well, we go out and do well most of the time and we create chances.

"I don't know. We are here and that is it. We have to fight, to keep working, but I am sure we will be okay with the fight we have shown and the people we have in the dressing room.

"We can't keep playing well for long periods of games and not win. We beat Norwich convincingly, we did well against Arsenal and we need more of those results.

"(Against Chelsea) (Wilfried) Bony and Wayne (Routledge) went close for us, and, I hate to say it, but it does seem like the luck is against us this season and the only way to beat this is to keep working hard."

Despite the narrow loss against title-chasing Chelsea two days ago, Swansea showed considerable resilience after being reduced to 10 men following Chico Flores' early sending off, and they will face a Newcastle side reeling from four successive league defeats.

Alan Pardew's team failed to score in any of those games against Stoke, Manchester United, Southampton and Everton, but conceded 12.

"They are on a poor run, and we need to go there and perform how we did against Chelsea. We need to win, and if we perform like that I am sure we can," Williams said.

"We need to be brave, we need to be positive and play for the whole 90 minutes and take the points. We say it every week, we need points.

"We fought hard (against Chelsea) but people will look at the result and say 'yeah, but you did not get anything'.

"But it was a brave performance and everyone battled hard, especially when we went down to 10 men. I actually thought we started the game really well with 11 men. We were maybe on top.

"Once we went down to 10 you know it can go either way with all the quality Chelsea have got, and they had a lot of possession. We dug in."

Source: PA