Roy Keane said Town had no one to blame but themselves after their 3-1 home defeat to Swansea. Keane refused to criticise referee Andy D’Urso despite the Billericay-based official turning down what appeared to be a certain Town penalty.
The Blues manager, whose side have now lost five in a row in the league, said: "No excuses, we have no one to blame but ourselves, not just the defending but the chances we missed and not dealing with the setback of the first goal.
"Obviously the first two goals were hard to take, but there are no excuses. We’ve got to do better, simple as that.”
Keane’s team looked to be on their way to a win when Andros Townsend put them in front but he says his side couldn’t secure the result: "When you’re comfortable, that’s when you get into trouble. That brings a different type of pressure — trying to kill the game off. When we didn’t get the second goal we were constantly under pressure trying to keep a clean sheet.
"The first goal was a soft one, but even then you’ve got to steady the ship and keep your head and we didn’t do that. The second goal was comical, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure I had the same conversation with you last week.
"It’s a bit like Groundhog Day — doing the same thing over and over again. You’ve all seen that movie, it’s quite good I know, but we’re doing the same thing over and over again and I keep coming up here saying the same stuff. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere on it.”
Despite having what looked to be a solid claim for a penalty turned down by Andy D’Urso, Keane kept to his usual policy of not criticising referees: "The official didn’t cost us the result today. Let’s not try and find another excuse for us losing the match. It would be too easy but it would be wrong.
"Remember, we were 2-1 down at the time. Who’s to say we would have scored the penalty? We’re pretty sure it was a penalty, but who’s to say we would have scored it?”
The Irishman accepts that five league defeats in a row simply isn’t good enough: "It’s unacceptable and we’d had two or three before that, then we had a couple of wins in between. But it’s eight defeats in 10, which is unacceptable.”
Keane confirmed that David Norris missed out because he has a virus, while Damien Delaney was fit to be called upon if needed. Darren O’Dea picked up a hamstring injury and is a doubt for next week’s trip to Preston. The on-loan Celtic man was already set to go home to Glasgow early in the week with his girlfriend still to give birth to their first baby.
Swansea boss Brendan Rodgers was delighted with the win: "It was very, very pleasing. I heard the players talking and they said that maybe a season or two ago we would have lost the game.
"It shows the mentality in the group at the moment that we’ve got the belief to keep going. We’ve shown a number of times that we want to control and dominate games with the ball and our ability to keep going has served us very well. It’s a fantastic result for us at a place where it’s always difficult to come and get a result.”
Rodgers says he feels for his friend Roy Keane with several of his senior squad members missing at present: "I look at the team that he’s got and he’s missing his experienced players and this is a league in which you need these players.
"Look at Norris missing today, Delaney, Gareth McAuley out for a while. These are stalwarts of the group. I don’t think there’s any better man to be here in a fight to pull the team out of it.”
Rodgers was not unsympathetic to Town’s claims for a penalty: "I don’t think it was a turning point in the game but if you judge it on the situation, if you’re the home manager you are disappointed if you don’t get it.
"Having then seen it afterwards on the replay I can see why Andy D’Urso doesn’t give it. There was a slight touch, he’s maybe thinking that the guy can go through and get his shot off and finish. Mark Gower’s just coming across, there’s no doubt that there’s contact.”