Courtney Baker-Richardson intends to transform himself from sleepless in Swansea to at peace in the Premier League.
The 22-year-old striker has admitted he spent a few too many nights staring at the ceiling following his sending off at Millwall two weeks ago.
That dismissal – just four minutes into his first professional start, for an ugly and ill-timed lunge at James Meredith – meant some restless nights, but his sleeping pattern should return to normal now that Baker-Richardson has scored his first goal for the club in Saturday’s 3-0 victory at home to QPR.
“There have been a lot of sleepless nights, I’m not going to lie,” admitted Baker-Richardson, who moved from non-League Leamington a year ago.
“To have only four minutes on the pitch is not a good reflection on me. I tried my hardest and tried to impress, but I’ve come back stronger and hopefully I’ve proved a couple of people wrong. It means a lot to me.
“I appreciated the gaffer keeping his faith in me and I’m just happy to get on the scoresheet with my first Championship goal. Hopefully, there are many more to come.”
Baker-Richardson, 22, is raw and unschooled but his enthusiasm and energy combines well with the more thoughtful Oli McBurnie up front for the Swans.
It was McBurnie’s selflessness that created further goals for Connor Roberts and Jay Fulton, although Baker-Richardson admitted he still has much to learn, including the modern methods of managers like Graham Potter.
“The reaction of Graham after the red card wasn’t what I expected. I expected to get panned out of my head or get punched!
“He wasn’t like that at all and he and the players got behind me. The older players and manager could have given me a good b******ing, but they helped me 100 per cent.
“Once you take some confidence from your first goal, you normally avalanche into a scoring spree. Touch wood it goes that way for me.”
Baker-Richardson had to bide his time last season when a long queue of strikers were in front of him and neither Paul Clement nor Carlos Carvalhal pictured a rookie youngster just out of non-League was anything more than one for the future.
But the future has arrived more quickly than he could have imagined with relegation, followed by a fire sale of the club’s assets.
Potter gave him his break in the Carabao Cup tie against Crystal Palace and the player is showing signs he might be worth persevering with despite that false start at Millwall.
“I started off in the Under-23’s and played two games for them. I managed to catch the manager’s eye and it’s gone from there, really.
“I started on the Tuesday against Crystal Palace and he was happy with my performance. He took a chance on me the following Saturday and I let a couple of people down.
“I told them I’d be back and dusted myself off and I’m very happy with how it went against QPR. The manager has shown great faith in me so I can’t complain.
“A lot of big players have left this club and we’ve got a young squad in the Championship. We don’t look like we’re going to go down and we don’t feel like we’re going to lose a game. All we’re thinking is ‘win, win, win’. The energy in the camp is very good and if we stay around the play-off places let’s see what happens.”
Baker-Richardson is now likely to get another opportunity to cement his place in the Swansea side, when they face Wigan away on Tuesday night.
Another victory would lift them into the play-off places and for the former Tamworth, Nuneaton and Redditch player, the incentive is to keep travelling higher in order to prove people wrong.
“I spent a lot of years in the lower leagues and my managers in those divisions told me I wasn’t good enough every time.
“My message was ‘watch this’ and every time I’ve gone up. Whenever someone tells me I can’t do something it just motivates me more and I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I’m a person who takes a great deal of motivation from people who doubt me.
“Every boy’s dream is to play in the Premier League. If we can get back there under Graham Potter with this squad it will be one of the greatest moments in the club’s history.”