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SWANSEA CITY boss Michael Laudrup believes his successor could already be in-situ at the club.

Laudrup has been linked with some of European football’s top jobs after a sensational first season at Swansea which has seen them claim the League Cup – the club’s first major piece of silverware – and move into the top eight of the Premier League.

The Great Dane intends to stay next year but Swans chairman Huw Jenkins has openly admitted that keeping Laudrup beyond the end of his contract in 2014 might prove difficult.

But Laudrup says Swansea might not have to look far to find his replacement with his No.2 and fellow countryman Morten Wieghorst capable of filling the role one day.

“I certainly believe he can be manager here,” Laudrup said about the former Celtic and Denmark defender who only joined him in South Wales last month.

“He has experience from Scottish football and is familiar with (English football). He has shown ability in Denmark, both with FC Nordsjaelland and the under-21 national team.”

Wieghorst, 42, played 30 times for Denmark and is contracted at Swansea until June 2014.

Next page: Ashley Williams insists Swans will not take foot off gas

Swansea have already booked their place in next season’s Europa League courtesy of their Capital One Cup success.

But star defender Ashley Williams insists there will be no let-up after reaching the magical 40-point mark by beating Newcastle 1-0 on Saturday.

Having made it to the mark usually associated with guaranteed Premier League safety with 10 games remaining, Williams said: “The manager spotted we fell off last year (when Brendan Rodgers was in charge) but we knew that as a team anyway.

“Mentally we got to a stage where we took our feet off the gas a little and it showed.

“But it’s different now. We haven’t looked at relegation all season, it’s been irrelevant for us.

“We’ve had a good season so far and we want to make sure that is still the case.

“We have a hard run of games coming up that are going to test us and, if we can get through that by getting some more points and wins, who knows (where Swansea will finish in the league). We haven’t set a target about where we want to finish but we want to push on.”

After Saturday’s trip to ninth-placed West Brom – who are level on points with Laudrup’s men – Swansea have home games against Champions League-chasing pair Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.

So Williams admitted he was delighted to reach the 40-point mark at the start of such a difficult month.

“It is massive to get there, but if I’m honest we’ve never really looked behind us,” said the Wales captain.

“We’ve always tried to look ahead and closing down on the teams ahead of you.

“But it is nice to get to that 40 points because it can be a bit of a mental thing and it’s good to get there.

“We knew it would be a big three points for us if we could get the win against Newcastle, especially with some difficult fixtures coming up. We looked at our schedule in the week and realised it will be a tough period, starting with Newcastle.

“We wanted to get that win at home while we could and, looking at the game from last season (when Newcastle won 2-0), you can really see the progression of the team.

“As a squad we wanted to make sure people would be wrong when they were saying we would still be at Wembley.

“We did well in that but we’ve done it before, after beating Chelsea we showed that in following game.

“It was a tough game, especially in the circumstances of the week and the high we had at Wembley, but we got the win.

“I think they’re very good attacking-wise and it was good to get a clean sheet.

“If anyone deserved to win it was probably us and shutting them out was a feather in our cap.”