Bob Bradley has paid tribute to Fernando Llorente for his role in lifting Swansea City out of the relegation zone.
The Swans manager was fulsome in his praise for the Spanish striker whose two goals contributed heavily to his team’s 3-0 demolition of Sunderland on Saturday.
The Swans went into their latest must-win game bottom of the Premier League and desperate to bounce back from last week’s 5-0 drubbing at Spurs.
They took the lead six minutes into the second half when Jason Denayer handled Wayne Routledge’s cross inside the box and Gylfi Sigurdsson smashed in the penalty.
Llorente, who scored twice in the 5-4 win against Crystal Palace a fortnight ago, made it 2-0 three minutes later and then wrapped things up 10 minutes from time with a headed finish to lift Swansea out of the drop zone.
The Spaniard’s double took his tally for the campaign to five and Bradley was keen to point out how vital his upturn in fortunes has been for the Swans.
“Fernando continues to raise the level,” Bradley said.
“His experience, his ability in the box, the way he can hold defenders off – he has in recent weeks shown how much he can do for us and I think it starts to be a really good understanding between him [and] Sigurdsson playing behind him.”
On Sigurdsson’s clinical spot-kick, Bradley added: “He has got a good idea of how he wants to handle things. He is cool in those situations and I think his set piece work it always is quite important.”
The Swansea boss was also keen to point out the importance of a rare clean sheet for his side, particularly in the wake of the Spurs game where keeper Lukasz Fabianski was beaten five times.
“That (clean sheet) is essential,” explained Bradley.
“We’ve conceded too many goals, different kind of goals on different days, but at the end just too many, so today I think the focus throughout was quite good and they get rewarded.
“It is important also for Lukasz. He made some good saves last week in the second half but I think he gets his bonus today with the clean sheet.”
It was the perfect response to the Spurs game, even if Bradley feels the display at White Hart Lane wasn’t as bad as the result suggested.
He said: “It was good work today. I think we are proud of it so we talk about relief, we talk about pride and we are trying to build on it.
“Inside the team we knew that in the second half last week we went for it and it turned into a game where the scoreline looked bad but sometimes a team needs to be challenged and the response this week has been excellent.
“Our home form – we’ve talked about how we need to be good at the Liberty. Once again the supporters were right there with us so there are a lot of positives.”