Swansea heading in a bad direction, acknowledges Bradley

Swansea City manager Bob Bradley has demanded improvement from his side after they remained rooted in the Premier League relegation zone after a 3-1, Salomon Rondon-inflicted defeat at West Brom.

Rondon, who had failed to find the net in eight of his past nine games, crushed Swansea’s resolve within 13 second-half minutes at The Hawthorns with a hat-trick of top-class headers.

And although Swansea had put in a spirited first-half display, and did manage to pull a goal back through Wayne Routledge late on, Bradley failed to take many positives from his fifth defeat since taking over from Francesco Guidolin.

“Things aren’t going in a good direction but there are still specific things that need to improve,” the former United States coach told BBC Sport.

“Defence is an area where we have to improve. If we could’ve kept in the game at 1-0, we could have started to play some passes.

“But all too many times this season we give up the second goal all too quickly and that happened again. 

“Even when you play well, you don’t always take the lead. On both the second and third, we didn’t move out very quickly, they were allowed deep into the box. 

“Today I thought the first half was solid, now the key is being able to play for 90 minutes and handle different situations in the game.”

Swansea’s next fixture sees them travel to Middlesbrough, before taking on West Ham and Bournemouth over the festive period.