Tate: We’re Not Talking About Promotion

Tate was speaking after the Swans 2-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday – a result that lifted them to 5th place in the Championship table

He told the Evening Post “If you had asked me at the start of the season if I thought we’d be fifth at Christmas, I would have said no to be honest

“When you considered what went on in the summer and looked at all the other teams in the league, I thought we would be 10th or 11th.

“I’m sure other people were not backing us to do this well this season, and if you’d offered us fifth we’d have taken it.

“It’s a massive improvement on where we were last year and that’s what you always have to look for.

“No matter what team we seem to put out at the moment, everyone has the right work ethic and that’s paying dividends for us.

“We are happy with how things are going and of course we’d be happy if we’re still fifth in May because that would give us a chance of reaching the Premier League.

“That’s got to be everyone’s goal, but we’re not talking about promotion at the moment because that would be ridiculous.

“There are so many teams in this league who have been through some bad form but have strong squads.

“Sheffield United are one example, then you have Middlesbrough and QPR — they will all come right back into it between now and the end of the season.

“We got the perfect start with the early goal — that’s what you need when you are playing a side who have been struggling,” Tate added.

“You could see their confidence drifting after that and then we scored a great team goal towards the end of the first half which pretty much killed them off.

“All the lads deserve credit for another clean sheet. We seem to have things sorted defensively, so I think the key to staying where we are in the table is going to be scoring goals.

“If we can get a couple like we did on Saturday, we will always be in with a chance.”