SWANS: ‘We can compete against every team’: Matos hails complete Swansea display

Vitor Matos said Swansea City produced a complete performance in the 3-1 win over Burnley, and backed his side to compete with anyone in the Championship.

The victory sent the Swans back into the automatic promotion places and, for the head coach, answered the questions raised by the midweek defeat at Southampton.

“It was a good game, quite complete in different phases,” said Matos. “With the ball we had really good moments, important moments that gave us the initiative and the control, and the right positions to push Burnley back and deep.”

Matos had warned before the game that Burnley’s league position flattered no one, and he repeated the respect afterwards.

“We knew that Burnley are a really good team, attacking with the ball. They have really good technical players in all positions, and they have the right speed to find the pockets and threaten,” he said.

The head coach was pleased his side had responded to the lessons of St Mary’s.

“It was not our best game against Southampton, but there were not a lot of things wrong. We knew we did some good things, other things we needed to do better,” he said.

“That’s what we tried to do in this game against another good team on the ball. So we improved that.”

‘We can beat any opponent’

Matos framed the win as evidence of what the squad can be on its day.

“I think we have a team who can compete against every team in the league. That’s what we want,” he said.

“When we can compete against everyone, we know that on that day, at that particular time, we can have a proper performance and beat any opponent. If that will happen all the time, we don’t know, but we will work our socks off for that.”

The head coach also credited the players who arrived in the summer, and those who made them welcome.

“It was the players who stayed here who made the players that arrived fit into the culture. The culture is never about the manager, it’s always about the players,” he said.

“Having players like Jay Fulton, Ben Cabango, Josh Tymon, Lawrence Vigouroux, Zan Vipotnik, Adam Idah, Goncalo Franco and Marko Stamenic, who were here last season, helped the new players understand the standards and values we try to develop.”

Attention now turns to a trip to Lincoln City, a game Matos called a completely different test.