Under-fire Swansea City boss Michael Duff’s comments risk isolating him further as own mother-in-law sticks the boot in

The Swans boss is under pressure after a poor start the season – and some of his recent comments probably haven’t helped his cause

“I have always had to prove people wrong. If that’s what I have to do here, that’s what I will try to do”.

Michael Duff, on the outside at least, appears determined to make this work. However, his attempts to become a success at Swansea City seem an increasingly Sisyphean task.

Firstly, there’s the obvious point, results and performances simply haven’t been good enough.

Yes, there were glimpses of encouragement at Loftus Road, particularly during a fairly satisfactory first half. But as QPR moved through the gears after the break and increased their intensity in midfield, with the gentlest of pushes the Swans once again crumbled.

Had they been playing a better side, it could well have been an uglier night and Tuesday’s performance will have done next to nothing to keep the wolves away from Duff’s door. Chairman Andy Coleman is expected to be in attendance for the visit of fellow strugglers Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, a side operating under a toxic cloud themselves after a shambolic start to the season. It feels like the sort of game an under-pressure manager simply can’t really afford to lose.

It’s only seven matches into the new season but there’s precious little to suggest that all this will work out for the former Barnsley boss, although he’s doing his best to remain defiant. “The fear of the sack doesn’t drive me,” he said before this weekend’s clash.

“It isn’t easy [not winning games]. I am a human being the same as anyone, I want to win as much as any of the supporters, I can assure you. I have been given a huge responsibility because you are coming to a part of the world where everyone’s invested in the football club.

“I have to come to work and look the chef in the eye and the kit men in the eye. But I think they know the work that’s been going on.”

Duff looks increasingly isolated in the face of such vociferous criticism. Even some of his own family members have been sticking the boot in.

“I went round to the mother-in-law’s after the Cardiff game on the Sunday and she said ‘well that wasn’t very good was it?’. I said ‘no it wasn’t’ – and she doesn’t know that much about football.

“I am not trying to hide or pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. I get up in the morning – I left at quarter to five this morning, and that’s my choice because I only live a couple of hours away.

“I get up and I know I work hard. Whether people think I am very good or not, they can’t say I don’t work hard. The staff work hard and the players work hard, so hopefully something will turn.”

“I was written off at other clubs but I believe in the work I have done and I believe in my mentality. Hopefully if we win a couple of games, it will change for the better.”

Winning games will certainly go some way to remedying things, although there are some sections of the fanbase he may never fully win back.

“It’s not my job to win the fans over. My job is to win games,” he said when it was suggested that many fans had made up their minds on his leadership earlier this week. “If they’ve made their minds up, they’ve made their minds up”.

As with his initial comments about the derby, it’s not necessarily an inaccurate assessment, but it’s a soundbite that once again tees up an easy tap-in for his critics, many of whom will use it to strengthen their dossier of evidence against him. Indeed for some it’ll feel like he simply doesn’t value the opinion of fans, or the importance of bringing the Jack Army, the vital heartbeat of the club, along for the ride.

Instead the fanbase is something that needs to be overcome and conquered. This rabid mass of unreasonable dissenting voices frothing at the mouth with an insatiable appetite for possession stats and post-match fist pumps that needs to have its collective nose rubbed in it when eventually proved wrong.

Duff, despite his obvious desperation to stick one in the eye of his critics, probably doesn’t believe any of that, for the most part at least. But football is so often as much about optics as it is about results. At the moment, he hasn’t nailed either, and it’s all giving his critics too big a stick to beat him with.

Whether he recognises it or not, recent comments can’t be helping his cause, including the almost relentless digs at his predecessor and his ‘extreme’ brand of football, which many are now, rightly or wrongly, simply viewing as an empty excuse in light of recent showings.

Similarly, some might view his recent plea for fans to get behind the team as an act of desperation. An attempt at self-preservation in the face of the potential tide negativity that could well wash over the Swansea.com Stadium at the slightest sniff of difficulty on Saturday.

Duff has, of course, insisted he values each and every single one of the supporters that comes through the turnstiles, and his insistence on clapping the fans at the end of some pretty horrific recent performances gives some credence to that point.

But the foot-in-mouth type moments that punctuate his media appearances keep pushing him on the backfoot with supporters, drawing a line in the sand between them in the process. It’s a state of affairs he must address, along with matters on the pitch, if he’s to survive.

After all, a ‘me against them’ mentality will benefit no one, least of all Duff himself.