Sousa hails Swans as they jump up to third place

PAULO Sousa hailed Swansea City as "very difficult to beat" after they dominated Derby County — but insisted it is too early to talk of a promotion push.

Swansea are up to third in the Championship — their best position since the top-flight glory days — after Fede Bessone's dramatic strike saw off the Rams at the Liberty last night.

Excellent throughout, Sousa's men were well worth the victory secured when Bessone fired his first goal in British football nine minutes from time.

But while he was full of praise for his players' performance, Sousa batted away suggestions that his top 10 target may be shy of what Swansea can actually achieve this season.

"I don't think this is the time to look at the table," Sousa claimed.

"It's important to me and it's more important to the players that we are up to third place, because I've always said it's easier when you are near the top because you feel more comfortable.

"But we have a long way to go. All I would say is that we are closer to getting the right maturity, which means we know how to win games at the right moment.

"And that makes it very difficult for our opponents to beat us. They need to be better than us and stronger than us, but at this moment that's not easy for teams."

Unbeaten in 11 games, Swansea could be even stronger when they go to Newcastle a week today with David Cotterill expected to complete his move from Sheffield United imminently. The Wales forward watched from the directors' box last night as Swansea controlled an utterly one-sided contest.

"It was like breaking a very deep wall," Sousa added.

"It's not easy when you have one team who only defend, but that is probably something that is going to happen a lot at the Liberty this season.

"I think Dorus de Vries only touched the ball once in the whole game, and we probably had more than 70 per cent of the possession.

"We tried to score from everywhere — we made a lot of effort to win the game and in the end we got what we deserved."

Sousa reserved special praise for Bessone, who burst forward from left-back and lashed home Joe Allen's pass.

"It was a fantastic goal. We looked for the right moment to pass and then our left-back scores — I've always said I want every player to score and Fede did it here.

"In this type of game, full-backs can make the difference because they have the space and we have the quality to make a good pass."

gareth.vincent@swwmedia.co.uk