Swans are flying high but boss Vitor Matos is keen to keep his players grounded

Press Association Sport staff

Swansea head coach Vitor Matos wants his players to remain grounded after they went top of the Sky Bet Championship ahead of the international break following a 2 -1 victory at Lincoln.

The Swans endured an uncomfortable first half at the ProAmpac Stadium against the in-form Imps, who deservedly led at half-time through Reeco Hackett’s penalty.

But a rapid turnaround at the start of the second half ensured Matos’ side went two points clear of second-placed Middlesbrough in the table and ended Lincoln’s five-match unbeaten run in the league.

With three weeks until their next fixture, against Norwich, Swansea have an extended period of sitting top of the pile, but Matos knows now is not the time to get carried away.

He said: “It’s a nice feeling, of course, but we need to stay grounded as we know there are a lot of games and there is a lot still to compete for.

“We have an international break now, so we will not feel the effect of this game on the next game because it is so far away.

“It is important now to rest the players who will stay with us, keep improving them, keep feeding them in terms of the quality of the [training] sessions, then we’re probably going to have the players [back from international duty] the day before Norwich.

“This is a really hard place to come. We knew we had to be really spot-on, in terms of organisation.

“Towards the end of the first half, we were starting to impose much more of ourselves and much more of the game we needed to play.

“Half-time was important for us to refresh and to think how we get momentum back.”

Lincoln had the better of the first half, with Hackett their main threat as the attacker forced an early save from Swansea goalkeeper Lawrence Vigouroux before lashing another opportunity into the side-netting.

The Imps were awarded a penalty in the 39th minute when Josh Tymon bundled into the back of Freddie Draper, and Hackett dispatched confidently from the spot.

Swansea were level in the second minute of the second half when Melker Widell’s pullback was turned in from close range by the stretching Moussa Yeo.

And the comeback was complete four minutes later when Stephen Eustaquio received the ball from Eiljah Just before his shot from outside the box took a big deflection on its way in.

Lincoln joint-head coach Tom Shaw said: “We’re delighted with the level of performance, especially first half.

“They’ve gone top of the league today, Swansea, so that’s the level of opponent and we made it incredibly uncomfortable for them in the first half.

“We completely dominated the half, loads of volume around their goal and quality from our lads.

“We deserved to score at least one, maybe more, but we got a little warning just before half-time of what they’re capable of around our goal, and unfortunately we’ve had five or six minutes where it was just a little bit too much and they were too sharp for us.

“The second goal is unfortunate – it takes a big deflection and we can’t do much about it – but the first goal we’ll review and reflect it.

“We’ll be annoyed we’ve not dealt with it better, but the boys in this early part of the season have been incredible.”

MORE:

Swansea come from behind to beat Lincoln and move top of the Championship

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