Mark Gower admits that he will face a real challenge to get into the Swans starting line up this season

Mark Gower admits that he will face a real challenge to get into the Swans starting line up this season

Gower made 20 appearances last season in the Swans first season in the Premier League but the arrivals of Jonathan De Guzman and Michu may limit those appearances this time around

“It’s going to be difficult for me,” said Gower.

“We’ve got a lot of midfielders and a lot that played very well last year and we have added one or two in that area.

“All I can do is keep my head down and keeping working hard, if my chance comes then I have to be ready.

“I’d like to stay but I’m coming towards the end of my career and I don’t want to be warming anyone’s bench.

“I want to be playing while I still can – so we will have to wait and see.

“Whether you are 18 or 33 when a new manager comes in it’s a clean slate and you need to prove yourself all over again.

“He’s a foreign manager and he doesn’t know the Premier League that well so we have all got the chance to impress.

“There are quite a few senior boys here who have done a lot for the club over the years so I am sure once he gets to grip with things he will talk to each of us.

“I’m sure we’ll get to know each other over the next few weeks.

“He (Laudrup) got to the very top of his profession, he was a fantastic player and immediately that gets you the respect of the players.

“We are looking forward to working on a few things over the summer and continuing where we left off with Brendan.

“Obviously it was sad to see Brendan go, they were two of the best years in the club’s history under Brendan.

“But he’s moved on and we have to do the same because we’ve got a big season coming up and we need to get to grips with the league quickly again."

Gower played 45 minutes of the Swans 5-0 win against Port Talbot on Saturday 

“It’s early days at the moment,

“We’ve pretty much just done running and ball work in training we haven’t really worked on shape and tactics yet but we lined up more or less as we did last season.

“It’s was nice to get the games underway after all the training we’ve done and it’s good to blow the cobwebs off.

“In these sorts of games the quicker you can knock the sting out of the other side the better we got two early goals and they were a bit deflated. It turned into an easy result for us.”

Photo: Action Images

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