Saturday 19 August 2017 16:39, UK
Paul Clement says Swansea were punished for defensive errors after they lost 4-0 to Manchester United on Saturday.
Eric Bailly put United ahead at the Liberty Stadium on the stroke of half-time before United added three goals in the final 10 minutes.
Clement was pleased with Swansea's defensive work until Romelu Lukaku doubled the visitors' lead, with late goals from Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial adding further punishment.
"When you are 1-0 down you are always in the match," Clement told Sky Sports. "Clearly we had to do more defending than attacking.
"The goal before the half, just before you go in, we defended set-plays so well in the five months I was here from January, we only conceded one and that was on the last day.
"But we got in a mess with our organisation. The distances and spaces were not correct and that was an error.
"At 1-0 you have lots of things to build on and there were some encouraging signs. We didn't have any massive clear-cut chances. Tammy had a header in the second half that he put over the bar.
"At that point you are thinking about when to go for more offensive players because you have to try to get back into games and score goals.
"I didn't want the game to finish with a 1-0 loss so I made some changes and I thought we got in a real mess for the second goal, defenders coming across into the wrong positions and that was a gift.
"We had done so many good things defensively but we gifted them that goal and then we got punished.
"You become more open as you try to get back into the game at 2-0 down and we were punished on the counter. They are so strong in those positions, powerful runners and the space played right into their hands. It becomes very harsh on us."
Swansea, who earned a goalless draw in their opening game at Southampton, are still looking for their first goal of the Premier League season.
They travel to MK Dons in the Carabao Cup next before a league trip to Crystal Palace and Clement admits they need to recover quickly from Saturday's defeat.
He added: "The first step is to make sure we don't let the defeat affect confidence. No-one wants to get beat by that kind of score, however well we've done for part of the game, in the end we got a bit of a hammering.
"We have to make sure we regroup quickly, I don't anticipate doing massive changes for our League Cup game in midweek, we have to work on our game on all sides and then next we have a trip to Crystal Palace. That becomes really important.
"Of course we need to do some things in the transfer window. We have good players here but we need more good players if we want to be competitive this season."
