Swansea boss Garry Monk tells his players to deal with Andy Carroll

Swansea boss Garry Monk has warned his players to deal with the physical threat of Andy Carroll when they host West Ham on Saturday.

Carroll caused mayhem for the Swans when they lost 3-1 at the Boleyn Ground last month, when he scored twice.

The former Newcastle favourite also set up both goals for Kevin Nolan in a 2-0 victory for the Hammers last season.

Monk believes Carroll is the strongest forward in the top-flight and admits much of Swansea's game plan this week has been based on keeping the 6ft 4in target man quiet.

"It's something we have to put right but he is an incredible player physically," Monk said.

"He is probably the most powerful forward in the Premier League and he has supremacy over everyone.

"Sometimes when the ball in is right, there's not much you can do, but we have to try to stop him and that's something we've been working on.

"We want to put in a performance so we can put our performance down there earlier in the season behind us.

"We just felt disappointed at West Ham because we didn't reach our usual performance level and we don't want to make the same mistake again.

"We didn't give a good account of ourselves and we didn't use our strengths well enough in the game and, hopefully, we can do that better this time."

Swansea would go level on points with seventh-placed West Ham if they beat Sam Allardyce's side but the build-up to the game has been dominated by the potential loss of top marksman Wilfried Bony to Manchester City.

Bony, who is unavailable as he is taking part in the Africa Cup of Nations, is in talks over a £30m transfer, but Monk claims he has made allowances for the striker’s absence.

"I can assure you the players are focused on West Ham - fully focused," Monk said.

"We were always going to be without Bony in this period anyway and the players knew that. We had already planned for that.

"We will be looking to put a performance on in front of our crowd and we want to do that not just because of our recent performance against West Ham, but because we are in a good position and we want to try to push on in the second half of the season.

"The intensity has gone up in training. I have told the players that I am going to push them harder now because the second half of the season is harder than the first.

"Everyone starts to realise what they are fighting for in the league so I think it becomes harder."