Paul Clement vowed to continue fighting for his job as Swansea City manager after a 3-1 defeat at Everton left his team rooted to the bottom of the Premier League.
Swansea took the lead against Sam Allardyce’s rejuvenated side through Leroy Fer but a needless penalty conceded on the stroke of half-time allowed Everton to equalise and turn the contest around. Gylfi Sigurdsson struck a sublime second goal against his former club before Wayne Rooney sealed victory from the penalty spot late on.
The defeat, Swansea’s 12th in 18 matches this season, left Clement’s side four points adrift of Stoke in 17th and maintained the pressure on the former Real Madrid and Bayern Munich assistant coach and ex-Derby County manager.
But Clement insisted: “It’s a difficult job being a manager of any team and at any level. You want to win, you want to play well, every game. It’s certainly not something I’ve been used to in my career. Even here last year, we were winning more games and playing better. As an assistant I was losing one in 10 and winning nine. It’s the opposite now. It’s not a very nice experience, I’m learning a lot from it, learning a lot about myself, and I will keep fighting. I will keep working hard. I worked very hard to get to this position and I’m not going to give up on it. I will keep going.”
Everton’s first penalty stemmed from a foul by Roque Mesa on Aaron Lennon and their second from a foul by Martin Olsson on Jonjoe Kenny. Olsson appeared to make contact with the Everton right-back outside the area but the Swansea manager admitted the loss was self-inflicted.
“Up until the penalty in the first half we had played well,” said Clement. “We had good control of the game and then we concede a sloppy goal, firstly to allow the throw to the feet of Rooney, secondly the movement of Aaron Lennon who was not tracked correctly and then a clumsy foul from the wrong side.
“The last one is not dissimilar to the first: poor defending of a situation, the defender ends up on the wrong side, and a clumsy challenge. I think the contact is outside the box but it’s a penalty and game over.”
Wilfried Bony added to Swansea’s miserable night when he pulled up injured after only two minutes with a hamstring problem. Clement added: “It was strange. I don’t know what action he did to create that injury but the physios have confirmed he’s injured his hamstring. How significant it is we are not sure yet.”
