Monk Disappointed With Swans Defeat

The Swans were beaten 3-1 by their Championship opponents in a game where they went in as favourites but were soundly beaten and really can have no complaints at the end of the game with the final scoreline.

They were not helped by the early dismissal of Kyle Bartley in a poor piece of defending which changed the game plan very early on with Tom Carroll being sacrificed to make way for Federico Fernandez to return to a more traditional back four.

“It’s a disappointing result to go out of the cup,” said Monk. “We wanted to get back on track, but unfortunately we couldn’t do that today.

“To go down to ten men early on didn’t help. All the preparation you do before the game kind of goes out of the window. We tried to re-structure to get to half-time to regroup, and we scored a good goal, but they got the equaliser before half-time.”

That equaliser came just two minutes after Sigurdsson’s opener and it highlighted some of our defensive frailties quite clearly with the defenders being out-jumped and giving the attackers too much space in the penalty box.

“We talked about how we were going to work in the second-half to keep in the game until towards the end, then maybe change formation to have a go. We were doing that, they didn’t have too many dangerous situations.

“But we conceded a poor second goal. It was poor marking at a set-piece, which is something you can’t afford to do at any level. The third then comes because we were pushing on.

“We’re in a difficult moment after the last two games, but it’s important we come through it together.”

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