Potter: It's a tough week, but a great week

8th March
First team

Graham Potter wants Swansea City to embrace the challenge of what he expects to be the hardest week of their season.

It all kicks off tonight when the Swans face Championship leaders Norwich at Carrow Road (7.45pm), with Daniel Farke's Canaries on a run of five wins in their last six games.

Swansea then head to promotion hopefuls West Brom on Wednesday before returning to SA1 for the task of facing reigning Premier League champions Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

Given the respective league positions of the opposition trio, Potter's men are likely to start as underdogs in all three games.

But the 43-year-old sees that as a positive, and believes it is a sequence of games that offers a great opportunity for his side.

"It's a really tough week. Of course we focus on the first game, which is Norwich. We are looking forward to going there against a really top team," he said.

"It will be a testing week for sure, it's probably the hardest week we will have all season especially when you have Manchester City at the back end of it. But it's a great week for us to learn about ourselves and have that challenge. That's what we need to do."

The in-form Canaries are the Championship's topscorers with 71 goals from 35 games, and they have netted 22 of those in just their last eight games. 

And Potter has been impressed by how the East Anglia club have built on the foundations laid during Farke's often challenging first season at the helm.

"They are the best team in the Championship at the moment and they are a football club who deserve a huge amount of credit and respect," he said.

"They have made some tough decisions after relegation, the board have shown courage with that and had an idea how they wanted to move forward.

"It was not straightforward for them last year, there were some bumps on the road, but the stuck to their idea and they should be commended to that.

"Daniel has been fantastic as a coach, and they have played some really good football."