Swansea City v Tottenham: Monk keen to turn performances into points

Asked about the trip to south Wales, striker Harry Kane – who got off the mark for the season in the win over City – told Tottenham’s official website: “It’s going to be a tough game – they’re a very good side and they play good football, but we’re on good form and we’re playing well”.

Monk has had a settled side in the opening two months of the campaign, with nine players having started every league game. “That’s why you have competition in the squad”.

That form, including three successive wins, has taken Spurs into the European places and they sit sixth, one point outside the top-four and four adrift of league leaders Manchester United.

“I don’t think rants really work, but players are not stupid and they know when they’re underperforming”.

Southampton will be hoping the fitness of forward Pellé is sufficient for the Italian to start, having suffered from a slight knock following their 3-2 home defeat at the hands of Louis van Gaal’s side last time out.

“There are players that are itching to play”, he said.

“It’s not that the players are not working or not running”.

We do it after every game – what went wrong and what went well – but for this game there weren’t too many positives.

“Even when we lost games last season, our performances were usually at a consistent level”.

Garry Monk has warned his Swans players that anyone could wind up on the bench. “We have to get the balance back“.

Gylfi Sigurdsson ended Swansea’s goal drought from the penalty spot late on after Neil Taylor was felled by Jose Fonte, but it was little consolation for the below-par visitor.

Bafetimbi Gomis and Andre Ayew had contributed Swansea’s seven previous goals between them, but Monk says it is the performance of the team and not the lack of goalscorers which is focusing his thoughts right now. “But they are a distraction and we should be good enough to deal with all that and focus on Swansea City”.

“We’ve all been hurting, none of us want to be associated with that, none of us want those types of performances, we want to make it right”. We didn’t perform as a team, not one player performed at that level and I accept responsibility for that as well. It’s about being better as a team and improving to a higher level.

“At the moment we’re full of confidence coming off the back of a 4-1 win against City in our last league game”.