Proud Carlos salutes Swans

Carlos Carvalhal reckons Swansea City can “see the coast” as they swim for Premier League survival after they chalked up another huge result by beating Burnley 1-0.

Bottom of the table and five points adrift of safety when Carvalhal took over in late December, the Swans are up to 15th after Ki Sung-Yueng’s late goal saw off the Clarets.

The Swans have taken 14 points from Carvalhal’s seven league games in charge, which is one more than they managed in the 20 top-flight fixtures they had played before he was appointed.

And while there is still much work to do before the Swans can look forward to another year among the elite, Carvalhal reckons his team have given themselves a chance.

“When we arrived, we were deep in the ocean,” said the former Sheffield Wednesday boss.

“It was very dark. There were only stones and no fish – we couldn’t see anything.

“After that we won some big games against Liverpool and Arsenal, but it was only last week that we got our nose out of the water to breathe some fresh air.

“That was the first time we smelled the air, but in this moment we have started to swim and now we can look to the coast.

“We know the direction we need to swim in because we can see the coast, but there’s a long way to swim before we get there.”

The Swans were made to work for victory over Burnley, who are renowned as one of the hardest sides to beat in the division.

The Clarets carried the greater threat – without creating any clear-cut chances – in a forgettable first half.

But the Swans improved after the break, with the introduction of new recruit Andre Ayew and then Tammy Abraham lifting the crowd as Carvalhal pushed for a winner.

“I am very proud of my players,” he added.

“We played against a difficult team to beat, with the third best defence in the league, and we knew it would not be easy to score against them.

“But we felt in the second half that my players wanted to win a lot and we tried to help them by putting more attacking players on.

"We took some risks, but they were controlled risks because we have trained this way.

“There is a famous coach in Portugal, Quinito, who says ‘we put all meat on the barbecue to try to win the game’.

“That is what we did today. We had Kyle Naughton in the right corridor and Sam Clucas on the left, then three forwards.

“We thought we could win and in the end I think we deserved it.

“We could have been happy with a point and stayed as we were, but we put players on to try to win and we did it.”