Premier League: Gus Poyet keen to forget Sunderland's last Swansea trip

Sunderland boss Gus Poyet will return to Swansea on Saturday hoping to avenge last season’s 4-0 defeat at the Liberty Stadium.

The Uruguayan took charge of the Black Cats for the first time on October 19, 2013, and suffered a baptism of fire as they conceded four goals inside 23 second-half minutes, two of them scored by his own players.

Poyet said: "Terrible. At half-time, I was quite pleased because we had been training for 10 days about how to be organised and solid and we were 0-0, so we looked all right.

"Then we conceded the first goal and it was catastrophic. It was unexpected, everything that happened after, so it was a very long and difficult second half.

"It would never finish and I kept looking at the referee and thinking, 'Please finish this' because it was bad, a really bad debut in the Premier League as a manager.

"But you learn. There's nothing better than Saturday, 3pm, that's when you learn the most. Of course during the week, you see things, you can check, you can change, you can do different exercises. But the result of everything you do in the week is Saturday, 3pm.

Those second 45 minutes, they felt like three days because it was quite poor.

"Those second 45 minutes, they felt like three days because it was quite poor."

Changed

Asked what progress his side have made since his first trip to Swansea, Poyet said: "We have changed a lot - and I am not talking about specifically playing way. We have changed a lot of personnel - it is a completely different playing group. I think 13 or 14 players have left and nine new ones, so it's been a big change.

"We are still in the process of trying to play in a certain way a bit better than we are doing - probably Tuesday (at Fulham) was one of the best days in those terms, passing the ball and controlling the game. We need to maintain that, and winning helps."

Poyet knows Sunderland will face a tough test against a team managed by Garry Monk, who celebrated a year in his job on Wednesday.

Poyet said: "He's done well. The biggest advantage is he was there as a player, he knew the way of training from three or four different managers trying to play a system.

"He is not changing it, he is trying to play the same way, which I think is a little bit easier for him. But of course, that doesn't mean that he doesn't need to keep improving and giving certain touches of what he wants or what he doesn't like, so it's been good."