Luke Williams urged his Swansea side to use their convincing 3-1 victory over 10-man Gillingham in the first round of the Carabao Cup as the benchmark for their forthcoming league performances.
Ronald’s solo effort gave the dominant Swans the advantage at half-time. Liam Cullen then struck a second after the Gills were reduced to 10 men in the 51st minute, Euan Williams given his marching orders, before Azeem Abdulai struck netted a late third for the hosts.
“The performance was worthy of the victory. We made it a bit tense at the end but we made it comfortable with the third goal,” said Williams.
“We need to upscale the performance – for me, this is how I would like the team to play in the league but we have to upscale our performance to Championship level. We need more players that can help us freshen the top of the pitch up.”
Gillingham boss Mark Bonner was left to rue the dismissal of Williams that scuppered his second-half plans.
“I thought the game was as tough as we expected it to be and it only got harder with the sending off,” he said.
“We tried to fix one or two things at half-time and the sending off happens really soon against probably the worst team it could happen against.”
The Gills were forced to defend against extensive periods of Swans pressure before Oliver Hawkins’ 87th-minute header fuelled hope of an unlikely comeback.
“Somehow we scored towards the end and nearly had a chance to take it to a penalty shootout which would’ve been mental,” he said.
“We knew tonight we were going to play against a team who would dominate the ball but we were a bit too respectful in the early stages when we had moments to stop them and we probably didn’t do that enough. Our periods with the ball were too sporadic really and we never had spells.”
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