Paul Clement admits Swansea City's confidence is low during winless run
Monday 27 November 2017 15:20, UK
Swansea head coach Paul Clement says his side are low on confidence as they continue to struggle for form.
The Swans have won just two league games this season and currently lie 19th in the Premier League, two points from safety.
Clement's side ended a run of five successive defeats but continued to struggle in front of goal as they battled to a goalless draw with Bournemouth on Saturday.
"It's been no secret that the team has been down on confidence," said Clement. "The players always go out with the intention to do their best, but confidence and poor form can have such a big effect on the way a team plays."
Wilfried Bony had a goal controversially disallowed by referee Stuart Atwell on Saturday, meaning Swansea have failed to score in their last three games, but Clement believes that their attacking woes are nothing new.
Trending
- Papers: Gravenberch set to stay at Liverpool amid Real Madrid links
- Lawson confirmed as Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate for 2025
- Transfer Centre LIVE! 'Saudi could offer Rashford way out of Man Utd'
- World Darts Championship schedule: Smith in action on Thursday
- Nunez and Elliott strike as Liverpool battle past Southampton
- Gabriel Jesus is back! Hat-trick for Arsenal striker sinks Palace
- Hits and misses: Jesus, Elliott and Tonali all shine in Carabao Cup
- Usyk vs Fury 2: Start time, ring walks, undercard and odds
- Man Utd latest: Rashford has not travelled for Carabao Cup tie - reports
- Italian job! Tonali brace inspires Newcastle past Brentford
"I will go back to last season and say that we were never a team that were prolific in terms of creating chances," he said. "What we did then, which probably masked the issues we've got now, is that we were very clinical.
"We overcome it by continuing to build confidence as a team. We continue to work on offensive movements and finishing all the time in training and that's the only thing we can do."
Swansea travel to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea on Wednesday and Clement admits that his side will have to be defensively solid against his former employers.
"I know they're trailing behind a couple of teams, and Manchester City are clearly the best team at the moment, but Chelsea are still a very strong team," said Clement.
"They had that little error at the start of the season when they lost to Burnley that was very uncharacteristic of them but they're packed with talent and on their day are a very strong team.
"We'll have to go there and defend very well. We'll have to defend together and be compact. We have to believe we'll get chances because if you defend well teams will try and break you down by throwing more and more players forward and then that opens up spaces.
"We're not going there just to defend. The line-up I'll choose will be with the objective of creating chances.
"It's a big ask but we've been to other big places before and pushed big teams very hard."