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Dave Barton writes

Posted Saturday, August 25th 2018 @DBartonBCFC

Players working hard for City badge - Johnson

Saturday, August 25th 2018

Lee Johnson saluted his grafters after they stung Swansea City with a 31-second goal and kept their foot on the tempo pedal to secure a 1-0 win.

City followed up their 3-0 midweek victory over QPR with Andi Weimann’s fifth goal in as many Sky Bet Championship games and a bucketful of hard work to keep on the front foot for the majority of the game and send just short of 2,000 fans home happy down the M4.

Head coach Johnson said: “The City fans were brilliant and I could tell they really enjoyed it today. Any fan, when they see that effort and work rate from their players, can go home and realise that they have a group that is working for the badge.

“There’s a lot of noise in the Championship with a million experts, people saying this and that, but we do our work well and quietly and we stay humble and hopefully we can continue to get decent results.”

City hit the Swans with the fastest goal in the Championship this season and Johnson added: “We did feel that we could catch them. It was a designed tactic to go at them early. I didn’t even now who scored to be honest!

"But I keep on saying it’s a numbers game, keep on getting in those dangerous areas. Andi is brave, he works his socks off as did the whole team and that was the thing that really pleased me today. It was the third game in a tough week for very different reasons, to a man they worked hard in a tough place to come and get a result.”

Tomas Kalas made his loan debut just 48 hours after signing from Chelsea and Johnson said: “It’s very difficult to single people. It’s his first game and I am sure he was hanging in there a bit physically but he didn’t show it. He won his headers, he was strong and good on the ball and I am delighted to have him.

“We are getting stronger bit by bit. Fam (Famara Diedhiou) is back next week against Blackburn, which is important to us because he ‘ll be champing at the bit and he’ll come out of the traps like a greyhound.”

Diedhiou’s return from suspension is also timely given fellow striker Mo Eisa is out for up to six weeks with an ankle injury, which he suffered in training.

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