By Paul Jones
An upbeat Luke Williams believes Swansea City may have turned a corner after he gained his first Championship win since becoming head coach.
Williams pinpointed a sense of belief in the dressing room after his team won 1-0 at promotion-chasing Hull City to give him his first league win at the fifth attempt.
A well-taken strike from Liam Cullen proved the difference, although Swansea could easily have improved their lead in a largely dominant display.
“I really felt a strong positive energy in the changing room going into this game and we played like we believed,” said Williams.
“To come away from home and keep a clean sheet and to win, I am really proud of the players.
“Hull are a really talented team. They are difficult to keep quiet but for the most part we did that.
Se empieza a notar el balón parado del equipo de Luke Williams, gol de Liam Cullen para adelantar al #Swansea contra el #HullCity.pic.twitter.com/zruHtYFeij
— DII ✍️ (@Div_Inf_England) February 10, 2024
“And it’s not like we scored and then defended the lead, we carried on trying to score goals.
“It should give us a huge lift. I think the players should see that they have come away to a really tough opponent and won.
If they can’t take confidence from that… I don’t know what more we need to prove it.”
Williams praised striker Cullen for his goal and insisted competition for places between the scorer and Jerry Yates was bringing out the best in both forwards.
“We scored a goal away from home against a very good team and the back-line led us well, they kept us aggressive,” added Williams.
“Liam has come in said ‘I need to do the same level of work that Jerry has done and take my chance’.
“We have lovely competition between these two players, it’s good to develop this kind of rivalry within the team.
Liam Cullen’s goal earned Luke Williams his first league win as Swansea boss ⚽#BBCFootball
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) February 11, 2024
The Tigers had gone into the game in the top six, but it was the visitors who eased their relegation fears by claiming all three points.
Hull manager Liam Rosenior said: “We didn’t deserve anything today. One of the few times I can say that since I’ve been here.
“When you do that, you give the opposition momentum. Credit to Swansea, we gave them a leg up and they won the game.
“If we mark the player properly we don’t get blocked. That’s the thing we work on in training.
“One, our performance wasn’t good enough by our standards, and two, we’ve cost ourselves a point.
“We gave the ball away cheaply and when you do that you give the opposition energy, you give them oxygen.
An honest assessment from Liam Rosenior who admitted #hcafc got exactly what they deserved today. https://t.co/EGD9FxKMNN
— Baz Cooper (@bazdjcooper) February 10, 2024
“I told (the players) what we have to improve on. We have to bounce back from the setbacks. We need to learn on the job.”
Swansea went ahead after 10 minutes as Cullen got on the end of a corner from the left to steer a low shot into the bottom-left corner and the home side struggled to create clear scoring chances in response.
With 10 minutes gone, Swansea forced the first corner which Tymon swung in low from the left and Cullen ran in unmarked to steer a left-foot shot inside the near post.
Hull tried to respond, and Anass Zaroury swung in a cross from the left but it was too far in front of Regan Slater’s run to threaten the Swansea goal.
The Swans should have had a second when the ball came in from the right, but Przemyslaw Placheta headed back across the area when he should have aimed for an open goal.