Stoke loss must be Swansea City wake-up call

Lukasz Fabianski hopes Swansea City's defeat at Stoke City will act as a "wake-up call" as they fight to climb the Premier League table.

The Swans are five points adrift of safety after a 3-1 loss in the Potteries left them with only five points from the first 10 games of the season.

Boss Bob Bradley admitted his players - and his staff - face a test of character after Stoke chalked up a deserved victory.

And Fabianski says only hard graft will do as the Swans bid to turn their season around. 

"I think we have decent players - we are a decent group," the Swans goalkeeper said. 

"We have shown many times in the past that we can play good football and get some really good results.

"Hopefully this will be a wake-up call, to show us that we need to start improving and getting points.

"All we have to do is focus on the daily work. We have to work hard, be at our best and prepare ourselves in the best way possible.

"We have to keep believing, keep the faith, and work hard to try to put a run together. 

"That's the only thing we can do - we need to keep our heads down and continue to work hard."

The Swans' next chance to land a first league win since the opening day of the season comes when they host Manchester United next Sunday.

And Fabianski reckons home form will be key if Bradley's men are to pull away from danger.

"Obviously it's not nice being in the bottom three but then again what is good for us is that there are still 28 games to go," he added. 

"I hope we will go on a run and the confidence will grow.

"The home form so far this season has not been great. We have only got two points - we haven't won yet. 

"The Liberty is the place where we have to start picking up points as we have done previously. In the past teams didn't like coming to our ground, and we need to start making it that way again."

Fabianski was beaten after just three minutes at Stoke as former Swan Wilfried Bony struck his first goal for the Potters.

Wayne Routledge levelled the scores, but Alfie Mawson's own goal and a second Bony strike condemned Bradley to a second defeat in his three games in charge.

"It was disappointing not to get anything," Fabianski said. 

"After a poor start we came back into it pretty quickly and then it seemed we could do something.

"Then we had an unlucky an own goal. We just couldn't find anything to break them down and in the end we lost the game.

"We are not pleased with our performance, it's not a good evening for us.

"In any game, there will be some luck. But at some point you have to step up and take care of business. They got the third and they looked like they deserved the points more than we did."