Luke Williams | The table does not lie, the challenge for us is clear

Head coach Luke Williams believes Swansea City’s challenge for the second half of the Championship season is clear to see when you assess their league position and results relative to the teams around them.

The Swans boss felt his side had lacked a relentless mentality in their 3-2 defeat to Sunderland last weekend, and elaborated further ahead of Saturday’s trip to bottom side Hull.

Swansea head into this weekend’s round of fixtures sitting 10th in the Championship table, with just two games to go to the halfway point of the season.

They have taken just four points from games against the nine teams above them courtesy of a win over Watford and a draw at Sheffield Wednesday.

The remaining 23 points have come against teams below them, with Millwall the only one among that number to take three points off the Swans.

And Williams says that clear delineation shows exactly where his side must improve if they are to have aspirations of being in the play-off hunt towards the end of the season.

“I think if you look at the league table, we have lost to seven of the top nine, but below us we have barely lost a single game,” he said.

“So, we could not be more bang on where we deserve to be, if that makes sense.

“That also means that our challenge and our fate for this second half of the season is laid out very clearly in front of us.

“Sometimes you can be in a very misleading position, and that has happened to many a team over the years. 

“In those scenarios, over the course of the season that balances itself out, unless you are overachieving massively and maybe it doesn’t.

“But we are in a strange situation because we are exactly where we should be.

“So we now know that if we want to have an exciting second half of the season, and an exciting end to the campaign, we have to be incredibly consistent playing against the teams that sit below us, and we have to improve what we are able to do against the teams that are sitting above us.

“If we do that, we will be in a good place. So the challenge is easy to see, but achieving it is difficult and that is the beauty of football.

“We have to go with a clear mindset that we want to achieve what we think we can achieve. 

“I do not doubt us as a group, but it is clear. We have performed to this level so far, but we will need to do a lot better. 

“We have enough quality, but that quality is only really obvious when we have the mentality to match it. We can go toe-to-toe with any team, I think performances show that, but the mentality is key.”