By Paul Jones

Michael Duff has told his Swansea City team they need to speed up and break out of the walking pace that has dragged them into the Championship relegation zone.

It’s early days as far the table goes, but the warning signs of a campaign of struggle are evident after the Swans lost 2-1 at home to Bristol City.

Duff is still looking for a first league win as head coach after five games and his team sit in 22^nd spot, two points adrift of the safety zone.

The former Barnsley boss accused his team of being “pedestrian” and suggested the problems pre-date his arrival this summer.

He said: “I thought we were poor. I thought we were slow, we were pedestrian, with and without the ball and we didn’t do the basics well enough.

“We started the game well on the front foot, went 1-0 up but then went passive. We gave two poor goals away.

“It’s a difficult game if you don’t do the basics properly. We didn’t get on the front foot at all, we weren’t aggressive enough.

Head coach Michael Duff gives his assessment of the Swans 2-1 defeat to Bristol City.

— Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) September 2, 2023

“It happened in the last couple of years, it’s happened with us [new coaching staff] so we need to address it.”

Swansea had a frantic deadline day on Friday signing four players – Bashir Humphreys, Josh Tymon, Jamal Lowe and Kristian Pedersen.

But none of the quartet were available to take on opponents who gave a full debut to Taylor Gardner-Hickman following his loan from West Brom.

Liam Cullen’s first goal of the season gave Michael Duff hope that he would be celebrating his maiden league win as Swansea manager.

But Bristol City created a host of chances and had three goals disallowed before being ultimately rewarded by second-half strikes from Mark Sykes and Sam Bell.

“We’ve got four new players that will give us a better balance,” said Duff.

“There’s good competition for places now. People need to put their hands up. The season almost starts now.

🗣️💬 Michael Duff on Swansea’s next game being the South Wales derby:

“It’s an important game but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

“I'd rather win promotion and get beat by Cardiff twice.”#Swans #CardiffCity pic.twitter.com/ywDXk2JmZV

— Second Tier podcast (@secondtierpod) September 2, 2023

Swansea were inches away from an equaliser when Ben Cabango headed against a post, but that would have been rough justice on visitors who have taken eight points from their opening five games.

Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson said: “What we talked about (at half-time) is, if we could keep our composure, we knew that we’d continue to create opportunities.

“Let’s use the frustration of it to perform. I think that’s the big thing.

“There’s no good me being in there ranting and raving because there’s nothing to rant about, apart from maybe the guy out in the middle.

“I bit my lip. It hurts a bit now! But I’m just pleased that our players got a reward for their performance.

Swansea: Awful performance, in bottom three and post-match car crash comment that brought back memories of Dave Jones just not getting the SW derby when at Cardiff.

Terrible, terrible day for Michael Duff.

— Phil Blanche 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (@philblanche) September 2, 2023

“We created a lot of chances and we have done in our away games so far. The goal we conceded was a sloppy one from our perspective, but Swansea didn’t create too many chances in that first half.

“They went a bit more direct when they went behind and Max (O’Leary) had to make a couple of saves.

“It was a bit tighter but we felt we looked like creating chances on the counter because we’ve got pace in the team.

“You’ve got to move the ball quickly and we always felt we could get some success in wide areas. But to do that you’ve got to have the intention of getting forward.”