By David Williams
Luke Williams insists his Swansea City team must learn to win with more comfort if they are going to challenge for the play-off places.
The Swans head coach was pleased with his team’s fast start in their 2-1 victory at Derby County which has taken them up to 11th place in the Championship, five points off the top six.
But Williams thought his side were second best for the majority of the contest despite earning a third away win of the season.
The Swans stunned Pride Park into silence with less than two minutes on the clock when Zan Vipotnik sent a bullet past Jacob Widell Zetterstrom before Ronald slotted home his first of the season in the 14th minute.
The gaffer reflects on this evening’s win in Derby pic.twitter.com/eHpecVmJGC
— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) November 27, 2024
Cyrus Christie brought Tom Barkhuizen down inside the box and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing dispatched the resulting penalty to cut the deficit in half and, despite piling on the pressure, Derby succumbed to a second home defeat of the season.
Williams said: “We started the game very well, we were good up until we scored the second goal then we lost the grip on the game and I thought Derby were the better team.
“The next thing for us we have to be able to maintain that level throughout the game and we weren’t able to do that to be quite honest today.
“They made it difficult, reacted very well after the second goal and didn’t go under, far from it.”
Swansea leapfrogged their opponents into the top half of the table with their sixth win of the season and took three points back to south Wales following two last-minute defeats by Burnley and Leeds heading into the match.
Williams added: “We’ve recently conceded late goals but they’re a very resilient group and we saw it out in the end.
“We’ve dominated games a lot but probably failed to score when we’ve been that dominant and tonight we managed to score the goals when we were dominant.
“We scored the goals at the right time today.”
Derby had been unbeaten in their last three matches coming into this one but Paul Warne put defeat down to a poor start.
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He said: “We conceded two and didn’t get close enough, weren’t aggressive enough, not enough body contact and looked soft, that’s my fault.
“Maybe I didn’t message it properly. Sometimes it doesn’t come down to shape and tactics but I thought that was what the difference was.
“Credit Swansea for the win but after the 25 mins it looked like we would score. I really enjoyed it, that’s the truth. I had 70 minutes of a team giving everything, I don’t think we’ve had that many attempts in the Championship this season.
“It’s a rude awakening, last year we would’ve won that 4-2.”