Joel Piroe pleased to end pre-season on a high

Striker Joel Piroe says Swansea City cannot wait for the season to start after rounding off their preparations on a positive note with a 2-1 win at Charlton Athletic.

The forward bagged his sixth pre-season goal as his fine finish got the Swans level just before the hour-mark, after they had been trailing for most of the match to an early Harry Darling own goal.

Cameron Congreve played his part when he came on as a late substitute and made an impressive run along the by-line, pulling the ball back across goal for Ryan Manning to turn in from close range.

The Swans tried out a different formation in each half, which Piroe believes will be important when the season starts next weekend.

“It was nice to be able to show that we can play in two ways and change up the style if we need to,” said Piroe.

“There are some things we still need to work on. We want to get a bit more fluid, and some players are still getting used to how we play.

“But I think it’s a good way to end pre-season with a win and some good goals.”

Piroe’s leveller came from a set-piece - with Nathan Wood heading a Matt Grimes corner-kick delivery into the feet of the Dutchman – and the striker said improving set-pieces has been a focus of pre-season training.

Swans struggled to capitalise from set-pieces last term, but are hoping to put that right with the arrival of specialist coach Andy Parslow.

“We’ve been working on set-pieces a lot. AP [Parslow] has been really working us hard on that, and we want to improve and score more next season,” he added.

“We have been working on a few things, but that was one.

“It’s only pre-season, but it’s always nice to start off scoring goals and I want to continue that into the league.

“There were some tough weeks in pre-season, but I think we all feel ready now and we can’t wait for the season to start.”