I´m not a man at the end of my tether – Clement confident Swansea can avoid the drop

Paul Clement remains convinced he can steer Swansea City to Premier League safety – and hopes a pre-Christmas push can boost their survival hopes.

The Welsh club sit bottom of the table on nine points, four adrift of 17th-placed West Brom ahead of Saturday’s pivotal fixture between the two struggling teams at the Liberty Stadium.

Swansea haven’t registered a league win since a 2-0 result against Huddersfield Town on October 14, with a run of seven defeats in eight games leading to speculation over Clement’s future.

However, Carlo Ancelotti’s former assistant at Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Real Madrid believes he retains the full support of everyone at the club, including the players.

“I’m not a man at the end of my tether. I still feel very much that this team can get out of the situation they’re in,” he told the media at his pre-match news conference.

“We are working in a focused manner. We just need to turn around our good work and preparation we do during the week into a good performance.

“I’ve no doubt about that, and I’ve no doubt in the players being behind me.

“I’ve enough experience to know when the dressing room is behind you and when it’s not. I’ve experienced dressing rooms that have grown apart from their manager.

“Sometimes that’s difficult to get back, but I’ve no feeling like that. We’ve a positive dressing and a good group of players to work with. We’ve just got to find that little ingredient to get us a win.

“If there’s any pressure or talk about me not being here, it’s from external sources and not from within.”

I feel strong #premierleague #swans #gladiator #yjb #51 pic.twitter.com/zEU7bSVub5

— Roque Mesa (@RoqueM26) December 7, 2017

Clement took over with the Swans struggling towards the foot of the table at the start of the year, though he managed to engineer a route to safety during the second half of the season.

If history is to be repeated, he feels the club must pick up a minimum of three more points before they reach the halfway stage of their league campaign.

“I look at our points tally in the league – we’re on nine points at the moment when four games away from the halfway point,” he explained.

“At the halfway point last year, the team had 12 points. We know that if you get to that, you can still go on and do it. It was a big effort at the end of last season, but we managed to do it.

“We need to be at a minimum of 12 by halfway. If it’s any lower than that, it’s going to be tough.”