Wednesday 27 August 2014 15:25, UK
Garry Monk hailed the impact of his summer signings after seeing them help Swansea City past Rotherham United and into the third round of the Capital One Cup.
Bafetimbi Gomis' first goal in English football put paid to Championship opponents Rotherham as Swansea built on their Premier League victories over Manchester United and Burnley.
France striker Gomis was making his first start since his summer move from Lyon, while Argentina centre-back Federico Fernandez, signed for £8million from Napoli last week, and on-loan Tottenham midfielder Tom Carroll made accomplished debuts.
"They were all very good," said Monk. "All strikers want to score and Bafe has that.
"The goal will give him confidence but he put in a very good shift.
"Federico dealt with the physical side of it as it's a while since he's played a competitive game.
"I thought he did very well with the rest of the back-four and it was good to see Kyle Bartley do very well too.
"Tom also did well, you could see the footballer in him and we saw some really good passes and movement. He'll get sharper with games."
Swansea were always in command after Gomis' clinical 22nd minute strike but could not get the second goal to finish the tie off.
"I'm delighted with the clean sheet and we controlled the whole game," said Monk.
"The second half was much better for us and we were much crisper with the ball.
"We passed it very well and we should have added to our tally.
All strikers want to score and Bafe has that. The goal will give him confidence but he put in a very good shift.
"I knew it wasn't going to be easy as Rotherham came up last season and started the season pretty well.
"They were always going to be dogged and dig in, but I was pleased that we dealt with everything that was coming at us.
"What we learned from Burnley was we knew the aerial bombardment was knew was coming.
"The best way to control that is by us keeping the ball and we managed to do that in the second half when the long balls that were coming in were spread out."
Rotherham assistant manager Paul Raynor felt the Millers could take a lot of satisfaction from their performance at Swansea.
The Championship side lost out to Gomis' excellent first-half finish but had their moments in the second period of a hard-fought Capital One Cup tie.
"I'd like to think we can leave with our heads held high," Raynor told the official Rotherham website.
"We've come up against a very talented Swansea team and apart from the last 10 minutes I think we created some good chances.
"If we were a bit more ruthless we might have gone into extra-time. We're disappointed to go out of the cup but we gave a good account of ourselves.
"They brought an £8million centre-half in, a man who starred in the World Cup and someone on loan from Tottenham so we knew what we were up against.
"But he (Swansea manager Garry Monk) showed us a compliment by bringing the likes of Bony and Shelvey on because we were still in the game."
