Swansea City’s calamitous season is going from bad to worse after it emerged their players turned on one another in a heated row in the wake of their chastening defeat at Stoke City. The disappointment and frustration that has been building for weeks spilled over in an angry confrontation that could be heard outside the changing room following yet another damaging result.

Stoke’s 2-1 victory on Saturday condemned Swansea to their ninth Premier League defeat in 12 matches, increasing the pressure on Paul Clement, who delivered a scathing assessment of his team’s performances so far this season after they slipped to the bottom of the table.

Although Clement retains the support of the club’s board ahead of next Saturday’s home game against West Bromwich Albion, with the owners hopeful that results can improve in time to allow the coach a chance to strengthen the squad in the January transfer window, the problems are piling up on and off the pitch after the scenes in the dressing room at Stoke.

It is understood that some players have privately questioned the level of commitment of a few of their team-mates for a while, and the manner of the defeat at Stoke appears to have been a tipping point when it comes to airing grievances. Although Swansea got off to the perfect start when Wilfried Bony scored early on, the hosts exposed their fragile confidence with two goals in the space of four minutes just before the interval.

Martin Olsson, the Swansea left-back, described the exchanges in the dressing room as “heated” and admitted it had reached a stage where players needed to speak their minds. “Now it’s time to get tough and if you need to dig some players out, you need to dig some players out,” Olsson said. “It’s time for us to be men and go and fight on the pitch. When we conceded the first goal, most of the heads go down and we’re not playing as aggressive. It cannot happen. We need to be stronger mentally, much stronger, because it’s going to be a long season.

“[Saturday] was one of those days where some frustration came out in the dressing room but it happens in a good way – and it had to happen. We’re still behind each other, there’s some stuff we need to work on.”

Asked to elaborate on the verbal exchanges, Olsson said: “Of course it gets a bit heated but in a good way. We all need to wake up as a team and we need to run for each other, create chances, offensively, defensively, like the end of last season.”

Olsson went on to say that the blame for Swansea’s results rests with the players and not Clement. “The manager told us what to do. We need to listen to him. We knew there was going to be a long ball in and we had to deal with it [for Stoke’s second goal], and of course the first goal the ball was given away [by Leroy Fer]. Simple, silly mistakes – it’s frustrating.”