Paulo Sousa returns to Wales today happy with the progress made by his side in Spain
The Swans return ahead of their next pre-season friendly at the Liberty on Saturday against Kilmarnock and the new man at the helm is happy with the progress made by the team during their time away.
The new season is currently only 10 days away and Sousa believes that the team are close to where he would want them to be ahead of the opening fixture at Leicester.
Speaking to Wales Online, Sousa said “The team is already close to where I would want them to be, It won’t be long before we can give our best performance.
“We just need to be able to maintain our intensity for longer.
“We have two more weeks to go and I’m confident we can use that time to get where we want to be.
“I’m really happy with the personality the team is developing as well. They are all helping each other as we build towards the first game against Leicester.
“There were a lot of other positives in Spain. Nobody got injured, it was fantastic to see Marcos and Angel return, the fans were great and we played some really good football at times.
“We have trained hard, played with different systems and introduced a lot of new things over the past week.
“It has been a long, long tour for the boys but I’m really happy with the way they reacted to what I asked of them.”
Sousa also made reference to Mark Gower - on the scoresheet in Spain after a seaosn of frustration last term and the manager said “It’s very important these players get the goals to give them confidence,
“That will help us when the season starts.
“Mark went a whole season without getting a goal and he needed to cross that bridge.
“It’s fantastic he was able to do that in Spain because scoring goals is a big part of his game.
“It was good to see Stephen score as well because he was getting anxious that things weren’t going his way.
“Sometimes getting goals can help relieve that anxiety and a good performance will help him get even better in the future.”