Paul Clement has called for unity in his Swansea City squad as the first cracks caused by the pressure of looming relegation start to appear.

The Swans coach has admitted his team are going down if they are unable to improve on their spiritless, fear-filled performance in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at fellow strugglers West Ham.

Hinting that tensions within the squad are ratcheting up, Clement urged his players not to give in to internal division as they seek to lift themselves out of the relegation zone.

The Swans suffered a fifth straight league defeat on the road to remain deep in trouble, two points from safety with now just six games left to play in the campaign.

“We all have to stay together in this, it is much easier if we all stick together and it will make it a little bit easier,” said Clement.

“We have a big challenge ahead, six games to go, but we still have to have belief. And we will continue to work hard and give our best in every game.”

“At this time of the season, you just want to get a result, particularly after out last run of games, it was very important to try and get a result today,” he said.

“We did not and I do not think we deserved to based on our performance over the 90 minutes. In the first half, there was a lot of anxiety and fear in our play.

“It improved second half on that side of things, but the quality, our shape, we lost some identity in the second half in the way that we normally play.

“Overall it was a poor game, anxious from both teams and it has obviously worked in West Ham’s favour as they have got a massive three points today.”

The Swansea manager opted to bring on both Luciano Narsingh and top-scorer Fernando Llorente at the break in order to add more bite to his previously toothless attack, but to little effect.

“It was a bad time to concede just before half-time, everything changes and we made two offensive changes at half-time, but it was not enough to get us back in the game,” he said.

Clement conceded that the late defeat against Tottenham in midweek— when they were ahead with two minutes remaining but let in three — had taken its toll.

“I can’t explain it,’ Clement said of his players’ performance. “I can’t sit here and make excuses, it wasn’t good enough.

“With seven games to go and we’re in a real battle for survival I expect the basics to be done a lot better than that. I can only assume it’s a combination of anxiety because of the situation and what happened on Wednesday.

“We put in a massive shift physically [against Spurs], a lot of heartbreak at the end, but you have to put that aside quickly.

“The players are a little bit fatigued, statistically and physically we put in our highest shift of the season against Tottenham, but you’ve got to roll sleeves up and get on with it. We recovered well.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily a matter of not getting up for it, I think they were up for it, a combination of the physical side plus they’re clearly anxious and it showed in the way they played, the rhythm of the football, the confidence of the football, we made a huge amount of mistakes.

“I believe it’s caused by the anxiety. We have to deal with that otherwise we’ll be playing in the Championship next season.”

Clement was lifted, however, by Hull City losing leaving them within two points and that Crystal Palace, who have two games in hand and play Arsenal on Monday, have a difficult run of fixtures remaining.

“The positive side is with results elsewhere things don’t change a lot,” Clement said.

“Palace have games in hand but their run in is the hardest. Still a lot can happen.”