Paulo Sousa is looking to calm his players down after the red card madness of Tuesday night

Garry Monk, Gorka Pintado and Angel Rangel all saw red as the Swans crashed out of the Carling Cup against Scunthorpe on Tuesday night leaving an already thin squad even thinner for the weekend visit of Watford

But having seen the arrivals yesterday of Craig Beattie and Lee Trundle, Sousa was now focused on the weekend clash and working on putting that red card shame behind them

Speaking to the Western Mail, Sousa said “We love to play football, but, when we are intimidated, we need to know how to handle the situation and be more under control, That’s my job and it’s one of the things we will be working on.

“But it’s not easy for the players when they are intimidated all the time. It has been happening from the very beginning and it’s important referees protect players that want to play football.

“That’s the sort of football that helps attract crowds. We don’t want to be facing the situation they have in other countries where the stadiums have thousands of empty seats.

“From our side, we need to work very hard to control ourselves better. But, believe me, sometimes it’s not easy.

“We won’t appeal anything. We will just make our report to the FA to help the referee be better next time.

“I’m not worried that there will be an extra punishment. I am worried because we can’t be intimidated all the time.

“It’s easier for me to select a team now because we don’t have many options,” he said with a wry smile. “But it’s a big demand tomorrow and it won’t be easy.

“It will be very difficult to replace the players that got suspended. But we have players that can come in and will be able to field an XI that can win.

“We will also have four or five players on the bench. With that, it’s still possible for us to get three points.

“We need to bring in new players, though, especially when you lose three players like that. We don’t know if they will get longer suspensions, but we know the minimum and that period will be difficult for us.

“If you can win before the international break, it can give us good confidence. It will come at a good time for us because we can recover some players and in September we will get a number of players back.

“Joe Allen will be available again, Ferrie will play for the reserves on September 9 and both Darren Pratley and Tom Butler should be back at the end of the month. I hope Stephen Dobbie will be back too.

“It’s really important we get three points against Saturday. There are a lot of difficulties with this game, but we will be very happy if we can get the win.”

SOURCE: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballnation/swansea-city-fc/2009/08/28/paulo-sousa-looks-to-calm-swansea-city-down-91466-24551117/

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