Swansea City v Crystal Palace: Monk looking for positive response

Garry Monk has challenged Swansea City to raise their levels again when they face Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday.

After a positive start against Manchester City last weekend – Wilfried Bony giving them the lead inside 10 minutes – Swansea fell to a 2-1 defeat, but Monk was pleased with aspects of their performance.

The loss ended a three-game unbeaten streak in the league for Swansea, a run that also included a 2-1 victory over Arsenal in their last Liberty Stadium outing.

Palace arrive in south Wales just two points clear of the bottom three, but after victory against Liverpool last time out they are brimming with self-belief, and Monk has warned his players to be ready to raise their game.

“Crystal Palace will come here full of confidence and with a gameplan to try and stop us playing,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to overcome that and show our quality.

“We had a tough game against them here last season [a 1-1 draw], and I’m sure they’ll give us a tough game on Saturday.

“We’re expecting them to be very physical, so we will have to stand up to that and impose ourselves on them.

“We’re improving game-on-game, and hopefully we can continue that on Saturday.”

Palace’s form before the 3-1 win over Liverpool had not made good reading with four defeats in five, however a better performance against Manchester United sowed the seeds of recovery.

Goals from Dwight Gayle, Joe Ledley and Mile Jedinak saw Palace come from a goal behind to beat Brendan Rodgers’ side, and put some distance between themselves and the bottom three.

However, manager Neil Warnock is still looking over his shoulder and knows replicating last week’s win will not be an easy task.

“I think that 12 teams are just thinking of surviving, first and foremost that’s what you look for, anything else is a bonus,” said Warnock.

“Training has been good for two or three weeks and I thought we played good stuff against [Manchester] United. 

“[But] Swansea are the best team I’ve seen this year. I thought they dominated Arsenal for long periods.

“Down the spine [of the team] they’re as good as anybody in the division, it will be a test for us.”

Palace defender Damien Delaney will miss the trip with a calf injury, although he is not expected to be sidelined for too long, while Adrian Mariappa is also out with a knee problem.

Swansea have no new injury worries with peripheral figures Jazz Richards, Federico Fernandez and Rory Donnelly still unavailable.