Luke Williams says Swansea City must find a "clever way" to end the "suffering" the club have endured since relegation from the Premier League in 2018.

Swansea are in their seventh straight Championship season and, as things stand, are destined to finish somewhere in mid-table.

After dropping out of the top flight, the Swans twice reached the play-offs while receiving parachute payments.

But the last three seasons have brought finishes of 15th, 10th and 14th respectively, with Swansea's current crop currently 15th having taken only one point from four league games so far this month.

Williams insists he is looking up the table rather than down despite his team's current struggles – and says there will be no "sulking" as Swansea attempt to turn their form around.

"We are suffering at the moment in this short-term run, but we are suffering as a club over a longer period of time - that's obvious," the head coach said.

"Since leaving the Premier League, it's been suffering, suffering, suffering, more and more year on year, and I can feel it. But [that sequence] has to be broken.

"It's challenging because we have a different set of circumstances to the ones when the club first exited the Premier League.

"That is the reality. There's no point trying to dream about a bygone era for me. I can't sit here and say 'if only, if only, if only'. It's done. Now we have to stop it."

Swansea were within four points of the play-off spots after successive home victories after Christmas, but their January slump has seen them slide down the table.

The gap to the top six before Saturday's trip to Norwich City is eight points, while Williams' team are also eight points clear of the bottom three.

Williams maintains that a play-off push this spring is not inconceivable – but says the primary requirement is "to continue to build" in the hope that a youthful squad will flourish further down the line.

"We can't build a group in the simplest way – just finding players who are performing very well in the Championship, splashing the cash and bringing them in to make those performances for us," he said.

"Lovely, a shortcut is brilliant. But we are not in that situation, so we have to find a clever way. It's our responsibility inside the building to re-engage with the fans and to give them optimism and hope that actually something is changing.

"It is ridiculously challenging, yes, because we don't have the obvious things that help many teams to be successful. But sulking is not going to change that.

"The only way to help is to warrior up and try to find a smart way to try to build a group of players with a feeling and a style that can hack the system and get us where we want to be."

Swansea head to Carrow Road having lost their past three away league games – at Cardiff, Portsmouth and Hull - in dispiriting fashion and been swept aside in the FA Cup at Southampton.

They face a 12th-placed Norwich side who have been beaten in their past three matches in all competitions – by Leeds, Sheffield United and Brighton - but have lost only two home league games all season.