Bob Bradley has claimed he and his team have to take responsibility for the atmosphere of bitter division at Swansea City.
Furious fans turned on the club’s new owners, the ex-directors who sold their shares, as well as the players during the shambolic 3-1 home defeat to Manchester United on Saturday.
The ugly mood – said Bradley – stemmed from anger rightfully fermented by an awful first 45 minutes during which the Swans went 3-0 down.
“In the first-half we brought it [the atmosphere] on ourselves,” said Bradley.
“We work very hard all week to prepare for a big match and we have to accept that when we fall behind by three goals at half-time the fans are not going to be satisfied. Neither are we.
“The second-half shows that as a group we are not willing to give up at all but we’ve got to prove to our fans that we can get results.”
Chants of “we want our club back” and “you greedy bastards, get out of our club,” reverberated around the Liberty Stadium.
American Jason Levien – co-owner with Steve Kaplan – was in attendance at the match, as were a number of directors, including chairman Huw Jenkins, who made millions of pounds when they sold their shares this summer.
The result leaves the Swans above bottom club Sunderland only on goal difference and now six points adrift of safety.
They have not won a game since the opening day of the season in August and have taken just two points out of the last 30 on offer.
Bradley admitted there is still a lot of hard work to do if his side are to stay in the top-flight.
“I would have hoped that in the early games that we could have taken some more points, and we had some chances.
“But I certainly understand, and I’ve said it many times, that in the Premier League you have to fight every week and you can’t take anything for granted.
“The players in the dressing room know that. They’ve had the experiences so we are all on the same page but the work to get this where it needs to be has to continue in the right way.”
Swansea were three goals down inside 33 minutes at the Liberty Stadium with Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic grabbing the goals for the visitors.
Mike van der Hoorn pulled a goal back in what was a better second-half performance from the hosts but the result leaves them without a win in 10 matches in all competitions.
“We can’t take big positives but we still understand there’s a lot of work to be done and we’ve got to continue to try to stay strong,” Bradley added.
“We just didn’t show enough commitment to close things down and get tight on people.
“You can’t play against a good team and play that way. The second half was a little progress, but you can’t take solace from playing a bit better in the second half after you’re down 3-0.
“It’s been a very difficult stretch, everybody knows that but there’s got to be a way that we can fight through it. We have to improve in many parts of the game and we don’t make any excuses. We continue to show up every day and we understand the work that needs to be done.
“You do many things throughout the week but what really needs to happen now is we need to get the reinforcement of some positive results.”