Michael Duff has seldom looked as frustrated as he did when he sat down in the press room at The Hawthorns back in August.
Despite a spirited fightback, the Swans had gone down 3-2 at the hands of a West Bromwich Albion, in a performance riddled with concerns. For Duff, the horrifying inability to defend set-pieces was particularly seethe-inducing.
"We've conceded four goals in the league this year, and no one's actually opened us up yet," he said. "We've had two throw-ins, a corner and a penalty. Whether we like it or not, we have to eradicate that from the game, because teams are going to score good goals against us, but no one's done that yet."
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Fast-forward to this week, and things are looking far more solid. A resilient and steely rearguard display was key to what was, in the end, an impressive point against Sunderland, with Swansea's confidence in defending the dead ball light years away from the pitiful shambles seen earlier in the season.
Many will be wondering what's changed.
"Mentality" was Duff's response when asked how things could change for the better back in August, an assessment that was probably lacking the specifics needed to reassure an increasingly twitchy fanbase. However, it's an assessment he still staunchly stands by.
"Application. Detail. Coaching. And the players executing it," Duff told WalesOnline this week when asked to put his finger on the reasons for his defence's marked improvement.
"Have we been able to improve the players' ability to head the ball in the last four months? Probably not. But it's a mentality. I keep saying it's the biggest strength in football. To be able to put your body on the line. To do your job and trust your mate to do their job. They get a lot detail.
"It's all about the work on the training ground. You've got to do it again and again until it becomes habit. They're getting the same information they had against West Brom, but it hadn't yet become a habit.
"It's like if you throw a phone at a six-month-old baby it's going to hit them in the face. If you throw a phone at a 10-year-old they're going to try to catch it, whether you actually throw it or not.
"The same when you're walking over a field of long grass. You walk across it once it doesn't leave a mark. You walk across it every day, it leaves a track. It's the same thing with football."
Duff's analogies feel a little crude and visceral, but they do make sense, and also provide some insight into how he sees the game. Football has never contained as many complexities as it does now, but Duff's philosophy (if he has one) appears to rely on boiling it all down to something more primal.
But the improvements clearly haven't been down to Duff's work alone.
Indeed, when asked about Swansea's newfound set-piece solidity after the draw with the Black Cats, Harrison Ashby showed little hesitation in pinning much of the praise on England coach Martyn Margetson, who returned to the club in the summer.
“He’s one of the best there is to do it," he said. "I think us listening to him and taking what we can from him. He improves us every week and that’s showing on the field. Every day, we’re working on it and it’s showing.”
Margetson's influence on the squad hasn't been lost on Duff, either, although not for the first time, he's perhaps reluctant to treat any individual as a proverbial silver bullet, instead stressing the importance of the collective.
"The way I see the game is quite similar to Marge a lot of the time because when I played I was looking at the same part of the pitch as he does. It's quite funny that when we're coaching, I often end up standing next to Marge because it's where I'm used to watching the game from.
"I had a conversation with him in the summer when I first got the job. He knows people like Nick Pope, Kieran Trippier, Tom Heaton, who all speak glowingly of him. I think he just gives good detail. All the coaches give good detail.
"But I think Marge has been great in the consistency of the message too. It's all very well one coach saying one thing and then the other four giving off different sorts of messaging. That's the same with all of it. We need to be on the same hymn sheet to achieve anything."
