Laudrup: Standards mustn’t slip

Norwich City 2 Swansea City 2

The Capital One Cup winners’ post-Wembley hangover finally lifted on Saturday when they ended their three-match losing streak with an entertaining 2-2 draw at Norwich.

“The people in Swansea are very realistic, but you must also accept that when you get the taste of success you like it and want more. You don’t want to be down at the bottom,” he said.

“It will be very difficult for me, the club and players to say in August that if we can finish in 17th with 40 points then that would be a success.

“Maybe it would be because we are still one of the bottom clubs in terms of transfers and salaries, but it would still be hard to say that. It will be a difficult year for us next year and that’s why we must do well in the transfer window and keep as many of our important players as possible.”

For the opening half hour at Carrow Road they were superb and were rewarded by Michu’s opener, but Norwich struck back with goals from Robert Snodgrass and Michael Turner until Luke Moore rescued a point with 15 minutes remaining.

Now that they have “stopped the bleeding”, Laudrup insists only a top-10 finish will do.

“It’s so easy to go into a bad run. A lot of teams have had bad runs — Norwich, Sunderland, Wigan,” he said.

“In the last three games we should have drawn one and lost two narrowly. Suddenly you’ve lost three in a row.

“It’s said that the players are already on vacation, are thinking about next season, but it’s not true.

“People from the outside just look at the results. They haven’t seen all our games. But now we’ve stopped the bleeding, which is good.”

While Laudrup is casting his gaze up the table, Norwich boss Chris Hughton is looking over his shoulder.

“You look around and see clubs who are more experienced than us, bigger than us and have spent more money than us in a similar position. You take strength from that.”