Swansea manager Graham Potter believes Oli McBurnie will keep on improving after responding to his critics with a pair of goals to seal a 2-0 victory over Reading.
The Scotland striker’s eight-game goal drought finally came to an end as he followed a first-half penalty with a late strike.
“Oli’s an unselfish guy who isn’t bothered as long as the team wins, and I think he’s contributed with assists,” said Potter.
“He’s had a good week during a period where he’s probably learned a bit. He’ll be a better player and person for it.
“The general theme of the conversation we had in the week was that this is his first season in a Championship season with full responsibility, and with international football and the criticism from Scotland and a few bad results here, things can become difficult.
“He’s a young guy who’s finding his way in his career and in the world and he needs some help, so it was just to make him aware of that.”
The win lifts the Swans two points off the top six in the Championship, although Potter insists it is too early in the season to pay close attention to the standings.
“The league table is one for the insane people to look at at this point because it keeps changing. We just have to keep improving,” he said.
“It’s nice for the supporters that we’re starting to feel comfortable and confident at home, we’ve had to work at that.
“We played well against Ipswich but it was the third game in a week and we learned from it. But we had moments today and sometimes football can kick you.”
McBurnie opened the scoring in the 39th minute after Daniel James tricked his way past Andy Yiadom and drove into the box.
In a desperate attempt to win back possession, the Royals defender scythed the 20-year-old winger down to give McBurnie the chance to score from the spot. And despite missing his last penalty, he stepped up and fired the ball low and straight down the middle.
Reading came out firing in the second half and almost levelled things up when Leandro Bacuna’s corner was met by Yakou Meite, who failed to steer it on target.
The Frenchman had scored three times in his last two games but continued to misfire in front of goal. And he was made to pay for his lack of cutting edge when McBurnie latched on to James’ cross to double the lead six minutes from time and secure their second win in a week.
Reading find themselves battling in the bottom three and manager Paul Clement is desperate to find some continuity.
He said: “We’ve got to get some consistency. We’ve been on the wrong side of some really fine margins. There hasn’t been any one game where we’ve been totally tonked – maybe West Brom and I thought maybe today in the first half but not the second. So we’re always in the game.
“There are some confidence issues there but we’ve got to keep going. We’ve got to keep working hard on the training field.
“We’ve got to get not just one result but back it up with a second result. That’s something we’ve struggled to do, and when you do that in this league, there’s so many teams beating each other and so many draws, if you put together back-to-back wins, you’re in a totally different region.
“We’ve got to maintain belief, maintain confidence. As long as I see the players keep fighting, I’m going to keep going as well.”
