Richards delighted with Villarreal point

Gary Richards was delighted to see Swansea City claim a point in their Premier League International Cup opener against Villarreal.

Adnan Maric scored in the seventh minute of stoppage time to snatch a share of the spoils for the young Swans, who had gone behind to a Mukwelle Akale penalty in their opening match of the Premier League International Cup.

The hosts had to endure lengthy spells of pressure against the 2016 winners of this competition, with Gregor Zabret making some brilliant saves to keep the visitors at bay.

However, the Swans showed tremendous character and determination to stay in the game, and were eventually rewarded with a late equaliser.

As a result, Richards is confident the under-23s will take plenty of momentum into their two remaining matches in Group E.

“It was a tough game against a very good team,” the under-23s coach reflected.

“Most of the teams use this competition for all different reasons, but Villarreal are the type of the team that enter the tournament and try to win it as we saw tonight.

“I think we were indebted to Gregor on a few occasions but, to be fair to the players, we were better in the second half and got closer to them.

“The pleasing thing for us is that we stayed in the game and kept going.

“We’re very happy to come out of this game with a point and will learn so much from it.”