Luke Williams says the defeat to Leeds United demonstrates the progress made by his Swansea City side this season.

The Swans emerged on the wrong end of a seven-goal thriller at the hands of Daniel Farke's side, having twice taken the lead through Harry Darling and Liam Cullen.

Leeds hit back after, first through Manor Solomon, and then a Ben Cabango own goal just after half-time, before Solomon popped up to put the visitors in front for the first time with his second of the game.

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Florian Bianchini's 90th-minute equaliser looked to have rescued a point, but Wilfried Gnonto's strike, more or less straight from the kick-off, secured a dramatic victory for the visitors.

Much like the defeat to Burnley, the result was clearly a disappointment, but there were once again some elements of their efforts that will have pleased Williams.

Indeed, he feels his team displayed enough on the day to show they are capable of competing in the top half of the Championship.

"I am pleased with almost all of the game in terms of performance," he said. "But the result is really difficult to accept.

"The performance certainly doesn’t look like anything less than a team that's top half at least.

"I certainly don’t feel like we looked miles apart from Leeds, that we should be 14^th and Leeds are top. But we have to win games we are clearly capable of winning and games where we are by far the best team.

"I don’t think this is the game where I can say we should have won, absolutely not. But there have been plenty where I have felt we have done more than enough to win and we haven't done that."

It's the second time in as many outings Leeds have come to SA1 and scored four goals. Back in February, Williams, who had only been at the helm for the best part of a month, watched his side blown away 4-0.

Having shown far more of a competitive edge this time around, he feels this outing merely demonstrates the progress made since that heavy defeat.

"I think it's fair of me to say that we have come a long way from when we played Leeds last season and I am pretty sure Leeds felt that as well.

"I saw an improvement today in our quality and our mentality, the way we can play against the very top sides.

"The performances against the top sides have been far stronger than they were last season."