Swansea City captain Garry Monk has urged his team mates to turn the run of draws into wins after securing the clubs fourth consecutive draw against Barnsley on Tuesday.
Turning into draw specialists, Roberto Martinez’s side will be hoping to keep themselves in touch of the play off places and challenging for promotion as Monk told the SWEP, he said “”We want to win our home games, that’s the most important thing. We’ve had four draws in a row now and we want to get a “w” after our name.”He added “If a few of those draws had turned to wins we’d be right up there challenging. The margins are fine, but we’re still only three points off the play-offs. It’s a crazy league”.
Experience at championship level has been limited at Swansea City but the former Southampton man thinks that the Liberty Stadium club can be the surprise package this season, “No one expected Bristol City or Hull to be anywhere near the top last year. There’s always a surprise package and hopefully that can be us.”
After promotion to the second tier of British football last season, few would have expected the Swans to trouble the division’s big guns but the South Wales club have grown into a competitive championship with ease and even Monk believes there is now nothing to fear, he said “ “At the start of the season a lot of the boys hadn’t played in this league before, but we’ve played pretty much everyone now and there’s nothing to fear. We’re still up there, so why not? Why can’t it be us this year?”
Airing on the side of caution, the 29 year old is refusing to get ahead of himself as he now outlines “I’m not going to look too far ahead. We could still be drawn down into the bottom half of the table and we’ve said all along it won’t be until February or March that you really know what you’re pushing for.”
Monk missed the last encounter between the two sides at Bramall Lane in the FA cup 3rd round in the 2006/07 season but now playing the Blades on the same terms shows how far the club have come,”I think we’re a totally different team from what we were then, but to get a result like that was a tremendous effort.Now we’re playing Sheffield United on a level playing field and it shows how far we’ve come.”