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Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Ian Mitchelmore

Swansea City boss Russell Martin rues costly sloppiness at Preston as 'ruthless' streak needed

Russell Martin admits Swansea City were punished for their mistakes as they lost 1-0 at Preston North End.

The Swans were off the pace in the opening half at Deepdale and fell behind to Brad Potts' 30th-minute goal following an error from Harry Darling. The visitors pushed for an equaliser in the second half but couldn't find a way past the impressive Freddie Woodman who made fine saves to deny the likes of Ryan Manning and Jay Fulton.

And head coach Martin feels his side's showing after the restart warranted at least a share of the spoils in Lancashire.

READ MORE: Preston North End 1-0 Swansea City: Brad Potts goal proves enough for Ryan Lowe's men

"They’ve had two scary moments in the first half, both from not marking in the box and we concede a goal from a mistake," he said.

"Mistakes hurt us tonight but we were brilliant. Freddie Woodman’s had to make three or four outstanding saves. It was just attack after attack in the second half.

"I can accept coming here and getting beat like that. I’m really disappointed by the nature of the goal that we conceded but I think nine times out of ten if we play like that in the second half, we’ll come away with at least a point.

"Really frustrated at the result, but I can’t be too unhappy with the performance.

"We paid for some individual mistakes. We had a couple of players who weren’t as sharp as they have been, but when you have a lot of young players that happens.

"Harry’s been great recently, he’ll bounce back no problem, but with young players sometimes, we’ve spoken about it before, you have these moments of pain but the way they bounce back from that.

"Steven [Benda] had the one save to make and they’ve scored from the rebound, apart from that, he hasn’t had anything to do. We need to score by being more ruthless, Ryan Manning’s chance, Harry Darling across the goal, he needs to hit the target. Woodman’s made an outstanding save from Jay.

"So I’m frustrated that we didn’t score, we deserved to but to come away from home and be that dominant and aggressive in the second half is outstanding, but we’ve given a team something to hang on to and that’s the most frustrating bit really."

Despite defeat, Swansea remain in the top six of the Championship, sitting above Preston courtesy of their higher number of goals scored. They return to action against Wigan Athletic on Saturday.

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