Sunday 10 September 2017 19:44, UK
Paul Clement concedes he was surprised by the manner of Swansea's defeat to Newcastle and admits he expected something much better from his team.
Jamaal Lascelles' second-half header gave the visitors a 1-0 win at the Liberty Stadium despite manager Rafael Benitez being absent as he recovers from a hernia operation at home.
While Swansea's loss was a narrow one, it left Clement searching for answers after anticipating a different outcome in the lead up to the match.
He told Sky Sports: "Although the margin of the defeat is small, I'm more disappointed with our performance.
"I'm really not satisfied with the way we played. There was obviously a lot of expectation coming into the game with new signings and old faces back at the club.
"Then there's the reality of going out and playing and for me, we were second-best all afternoon - in the combats, the duels, the first and second balls, in the tactics, in all aspects.
"That's not good enough and I take responsibility for that performance. It's not one I'm very proud of and we've got to move forward quickly and turn that around.
"It's collective responsibility and I'm at the head of that. When I look at the performance and the week we had going into it - really positive - I didn't expect that at all.
"That's why football can be so strange sometimes. We had good training week, all our meetings were very good.
"I had a good feeling going into the game with the atmosphere around the squad - then there's the actual game and what I saw was not what I expected."
For all that they were beaten, Swansea could still have taken something from the match, with Tammy Abraham having a chance cleared off the line by Lascelles shortly before he scored himself.
Clement added: "Tammy's got around the goalkeeper at 0-0 and on another day we might have got something out of that.
"We pushed right at the end but didn't get any real quality into the box that was going to hurt them.
"We kept going but overall it wasn't good enough. I think there's going to be a lot from that game we could have done better."
