Alan Sheehan | The performance was not what we wanted, but we were resilient

Caretaker head coach Alan Sheehan admitted Swansea City did not turn in the performance they wanted at Stoke City, but praised the resilience of his players to pick up a hard-earned point.

There was little to separate the two sides in a game of few clear-cut chances, with the Swans having spells of possession but being unable to find fluency and a cutting edge in the final third.

Stoke had looked on course for the three points when Daniel Johnson scored from the spot after Harry Darling had brought down Ryan Mmaee with 20 minutes to go.

But the Swansea defender made amends when he arrived at the far post to nod Matt Grimes’ pint-point corner into the net in the 89th minute.

It made it four points from a possible six after two away days at the helm for interim boss Sheehan.

But the Irishman pulled no punches in his assessment of the display, despite being pleased with the effort the Swans had put in.

“We’ve had an honest conversation with the players, and obviously it’s not the performance we wanted to put in by any means,” said Sheehan.

“We didn’t have control of the game for a 30 or 40-minute period either side of half-time, it became a bit frantic and a bit end to end.

“We made some changes to try and get that control back, but we have got a lot of work to do.

“There is no hiding away from that, but the players showed character and resilience to get that point on the road, and make it four out of six.

“We were not as fluent as we wanted to be, we got into some good positions at times and a lack of quality let us down, but that does not take away from how much they stuck together and ground it out.

“I think it’s a good point in the end, we needed a big moment. I was pleased with the desire to keep going and, out of possession, we grafted for each other.

“Harry has been wonderful in both boxes. I have not seen the penalty incident back but everyone makes mistakes, and he responded in the right way to make up for it and earn us a point.”