Russell Martin | We showed great determination to round off a brilliant week

Russell Martin hailed the togetherness and determination of his Swansea City side for ensuring they completed a “brilliant week” with a full complement of nine points from nine thanks to a 2-1 success against Sunderland.

Head coach Martin watched the hosts surge into a 2-0 half-time lead thanks to Ollie Cooper’s first league goal for the club and a Harry Darling strike from a set-piece.

Jack Clarke pulled a goal back for the visitors shortly after the interval, and pressed for an equaliser.

But the Swans saw out the game to make it three wins in a week, four wins in a row for the first time since August 2019, and 16 points from the last 21 on offer.

They remain in the play-off places, and Martin spoke of his pride at how his side had ground out the result on the back of two previous away games and the short turnaround following the bus journey back from Watford in midweek.

“I am immensely proud of the players, staff and the fans, with the amount everyone has travelled this week,” he said.

“To get the three wins is an incredible return. I think if anyone had said at the start of the week that we would get nine points, then I think we would have been the only people who felt we were capable of that.

“The players have shown immense courage and energy, but I think the effort we had put into the last two games did show a bit today in the second half.

“We started the game so well, we had brilliant energy and were so aggressive. Maybe we could have scored one or two more, their keeper made a couple of brilliant saves.

“But we could not sustain that energy, we could see it started creeping in during the last 15 minutes of the first half.

“They flew down yesterday after playing at home on Tuesday, it’s very different to our experience with a lot of time spent on the bus.

“We got back to the stadium at 3.30am on Thursday morning, that is not easy and I think it showed.

“So the second half was a bit more painful, and we are probably not overly satisfied with the performance other than the first half an hour.

“But we have been here after games so often this season where the performance has not reflected the result, so it’s good to be sat here and be happy about the result and the performance.

“We still had a number of great moments, we created openings but could not kill the game off against a really good team.

“I like Sunderland and how they play, they have some really good players and they will cause teams problems because of their energy.

“But we showed resistance, togetherness, determination and desire to protect what we had. The goal was a poor one to concede and I am annoyed about that, but to win four in a row with a young group after the start we had, that is no mean feat.

“It’s been a long week but a brilliant week.”