Joel Asoro | Rediscovering confidence is key

Joel Asoro can feel his confidence returning after a tough first season at Swansea City, and has set his sights on establishing himself in Steve Cooper's first team.

The Sweden Under-21 international joined the Swans from Sunderland a year ago, and lit up pre-season with his pace and trickery.

The 20-year-old was not quite able to carry that sort of form into the season proper, and ended up making just four first-team starts and spending some time in the club's under-23 ranks.

But he has returned refreshed this pre-season, and netted his first senior goal in a Swansea shirt in the 3-0 friendly win over Bristol Rovers.

And he wants to start making his mark in SA1, after admitting his confidence had suffered during a challenging start to life with the Swans.

"The goal for me is to establish myself in the team, and that has to start with the way I go about training and showing what I can do," he said.

"That’s going to go day by day for me, but there is a confidence in the group and I need to have confidence in myself too.

"I can feel that returning, I had been a bit down so it’s about rediscovering that confidence every which way I can get it and doing everything I can to be in the team.

"It was a special moment to score against Bristol Rovers because I have been waiting for that goal for a while. I had hoped to be able to do it last season but it’s nice to get there and I hope I can do it for real once the season gets under way."